Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (1994)

Plot of Mary Shelleys Frankenstein: The story is told by a sick Frankenstein who has been found by a ship of explorers looking for the North Pole. We look back. Victor studies medicine and follows the teaching of Professor Waldman, who warns him against the activity of . But when Victor’s mother dies in childbirth and Wadman is killed by a madman, the time has come and Victor uses Waldman’s brain and a hanged man’s body to create a new human. The creature is animated, and escapes from the laboratory, spending months living in a shed and observing the inhabitants of a serf’s dwelling through a gap in the wall. Despite helping the family when they see it, they run away, so the creature burns down the house and goes in search of Victor Frankenstein. When he finds his creator he demands that Victor make a woman to be his companion, and suggests that the body of Justine, the family servant, who has been killed by the mob, be used. From there it is downhill all the way.

Content: Not quite any sex, or quite any nudity. Victor with his shirt off grappling with Elizabeth still in her stays was unfeasible, but the creature is seen naked. The laboratory is suitably steam punk, although the means of creating life seems to be disjointed. Out in the streets the people are dirty and the environment unpleasant, although the family mansion has a very impressive staircase. The creature kills Victor’s young brother off screen which results in the mob hanging the servant Justine. This is maybe the most shocking moment in the whole film. The beginning and end of the film takes place in the Arctic where the explorer’s ship is trapped in the ice. There is one scene of Elizabeth sitting in the garden writing a letter – straight out of the Pre-Raphaelite playbook.

A View: The critics did not like this outing much, generally blaming Kenneth Branagh for hashing it up, as did one of the script writers Frank Darabont. I suppose that there was no reason for making the scenes so melodramatic, just the story made them that. I could not help noticing that every time anyone arrived at the family mansion, they always got off their horses about fifty yards away from the front door, making everyone run across the yard to get to them.  Eventually, like much of the film it is wearing.  But really no better or worse than any of the others.

Fun Fact: I have to quote James Lowder of White Wolf Inphobia because he made me laugh. He wrote, ‘the prolonged goop wrestling that follows the creature’s birth …and the re-animated Elizabeth tumble right past melodrama into the realm of outright weirdness’.