Being October, the pick for the Blind Spot Series could only be a horror movie. Having seen Frankenstein (1931) and hearing that Bride of Frankenstein (1935) was even better, the choice was easy enough. After the events of the first movie, the sequel begins with actress Elsa Lanchester as author Mary Shelley, revealing that the monster and the doctor are still alive.
The monster (Boris Karloff) is roaming around, trying to adjust to human life, while Doctor Frankenstein (Colin Clive) tries to create a new monster – this time, a female one. He does so with the help of Doctor Pretorius (Ernest Thesiger), who has successfully created miniature human beings (it’s as weird as it sounds).
It’s a perfect night for mystery and horror.
The air itself is filled with monsters.
— Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, in Bride of Frankenstein (1935)
The lead up to the creation of the bride takes up most of the film. In fact, we only see the bride in the final five minutes. With her being the most iconic part of the film, and the main reason I was excited to see it, Bride of Frankenstein (1935) ended up being, frankly, a disappointment. I found the monster’s dwellings pretty boring apart from a couple of funny moments, and while Pretorius’s creations were delightfully creepy and goofy, they certainly weren’t enough to make it an exciting watch.
I understand the moral tale behind it, on the creation of not just functioning bodies but ones with brains and heart, and the sequel does get clever with its twists and some character building (specifically on Henry’s part)… and yet. I can’t say I was a huge fan of Frankenstein so maybe this franchise is not for me, or maybe it was my own expectations surrounding the bride character that ruined it (honestly, that is one misleading title). But the truth is that personally, I found very little to hold on to and remember while watching Bride of Frankenstein.
We belong dead.
— The monster, in Bride of Frankenstein (1935)
Visually I never found Frankenstein (1931) as mesmerising as something like Dracula (1931), and Bride of Frankenstein maintains a mostly unimpressive aesthetic, with the exception of two moments: Doctor Pretorious’s laboratory, and the creation of the Bride.
It’s for that final scene, the last 5 minutes of the film, that I can say Bride of Frankenstein is worth watching. For that fleeting moment where we see the bride, even if she has no lines (how I wish I was exaggerating…!). In nothing else, props to Lanchester and the character design department for creating a bride we’ll never forget. The rest of it, we can live without.
