Frankenstein

I haven't read what people are saying about this movie. I can just say that it is a 100% cruel story. It is cruel to see how everyone turns out to be a victim: the Monster, his victims and his "mother". Shocking images throughout guarantee that this movie fall into the horror category, but it is certainly not a good horror movie. In fact, it can be considered "effective" only due to the heavy use of gore and violence, but it lacks both character and story development. Also, I have some problems with the adaptation itself. For me, the monster looks more like Dorian Gray rather than Frankenstein. Similarly, the script was rather weak, though I really enjoyed the performances of Carrie-Anne Moss and Xavier Samuel. The bottom line: This movie will be good for the ones who like to suffer, but for me it is a lot of clichéd stories brought together by a very underused cast.

I skipped this small release (although it does feature recognizable actors Carrie-Anne Moss, Danny Huston and Tony Todd in supporting roles) in my survey of Frankenstein films back in 2018 during the 200th anniversary of Mary Shelley's novel, apparently, as I now know from seeing it, with good reason given that it's largely a retread of the same episodes we've seen in prior cinematic adaptations of the popular story--mainly, the 1931 Universal classic. There's the "It's Alive!" reiteration, the little girl being tossed in a lake, the mob attack and the monster threatening Frankenstein's white-clothed bride in her bedroom--none of which is actually from the book, but rather from the 1931 film. That's not to say these filmmakers didn't read the source, though, as they evidently did from some of the additions here: the blind man, the narrated philosophical musings and a fiery end closer to the original text than to James Whale's pictures.

The most readily apparent distinction of this version is, of course, how grotesque the monster is, but there are also a couple other oddities here--one of which makes me happy I saw the movie. First, the part I'm not keen on is the picture's biblical allusions. Besides the creature being named "Adam," when the Frankensteins go about trying to murder him, they strap him down in a crucifixion pose, although they employ supposedly-more-civilized means to execute him with lethal injection. Little wonder, then, whether this Christ figure will be resurrected. Come to think of it, though, the 1935 sequel "Bride of Frankenstein" also included some Christ allegory with Boris Karloff being tied up by a mob--so this part isn't even that unusual.

Yet, the dreams are something else. My ranking of Frankenstein films is now over 50 entries, and I've never seen one movie that attempted to depict in any way the disturbing and intriguing nightmare from Shelley's story. This one comes closest. In the book, Victor Frankenstein's dream of kissing Elizabeth turns into one of his embracing his dead mother. The dream here, while it plays out seemingly for more bittersweet intent and from the creature's dreaming, still manages to incorporate similar suggestions of incest and necrophilia. The Elizabeth Frankenstein in this movie, after all, is both the mother figure to the creature and the focal point of his romantic and sexual desires. Each time the monster attacks Victor Frankenstein, then, to get to the mother, it becomes an Oedipus complex. That seems more frightening to me than a guy made up to appear covered in boils.

The plot was decent. It didn't always make sense but mostly worked. The problem with this film is only a string of bad things happen. So while the movie manages to be moving at times, it's a miserable experience overall. I was expecting a happy ending since the monster narrates the film and he sounds highly intelligent and sophisticated which turned out to be misleading... Bottomline, I recommend this to anyone who enjoys sad, tragic films.

Frankenstein (2015) is a modernized telling of the legendary tale that I recently watched on Prime. The storyline follows a scientist and his wife working on bringing dead cells to life. They are successful and create a living human from spare body parts. The monster they create they leave to become an orphan and eventually a homeless person begging for funds to survive. When things become desperate so do his actions. He'd love to get revenge for what his "parents" did to him...

This movie is written and directed by Bernard Rose (Candyman) and stars Tony Todd (Candyman), Carrs-Anne Moss (The Matrix), Xavier Samuel (Fury), Danny Huston (21 Grams) and Maya Erskine (DC League of Super Pets).

This was way better than I anticipated. The storyline was very interested and the sub plots they modernized were well written. I adored the cast and characters. Numerous strong performances in this picture. I loved Tony Todd and Maya Erskine in this and Samuel delivers a strong leading performance too. Moss was ruthless in this film and reminded me of her character in Momento. There's definitely some good kill scenes, gore, blood splatter and his skin was wild. The hospital breakout and sequences with police were outstanding. The ending was worthwhile.

Overall, this is an underrated addition to the horror genre that's a fun watch. I would score this a 7/10 and strongly recommend it.

Modern update of the famous story, here set in LA. Instead of a nuts and bolts style monster, such as Karloff, we have a pretty boy who is fond of saying the word "Mum". We get the young girl thrown into the lake, plus the befriending by a blind guy (well played by Tony Tod, who generously pays for Adam - I mean the monster - to have his wicked way with a hooker!). Plenty of gore. And production values are all good enough too. Now I'm all in favour of reimagening classic stories but I felt that this one didn't quite work and if I want to see a Frankenstein movie then give me Universal or Hammer instead.