Frankenstein (1931)

Oh, in the name of God! Now I know what it feels like to be God!
We will always see debates about which of the original wave of Universal Monster movies is the most important. With Dracula being released just under a year before Frankenstein, that tends to give the vampire crowd a sense of justifiable cause for a trumpet fanfare. Perhaps the more pertinent question is which is the better movie? Surely the most hardened of Dracula fans have to bow their heads in acknowledgement that Frankenstein quite simply is superior on every level - even if it itself is not as good as its sequel...
Narrative doesn't quite follow Mary Shelley's original source material (what a brain that lady had!), but the core essence of a tragic tale holds tight. Directing was one James Whale, who here was in his directorial infancy, he himself up for debate about greatest horror genre directors, but his masterful sense of theatrical staging, and that of the terror incarnate for the era, is sublime to the point that come 100 years after its release this will still be held up as a timeless horror classic.
The thematics of the story pulse with brilliance, the advent of berserker science, the alienation and confusion flow of the creature grips and stings the heart equally. The later camp of Whale's horror ventures is mostly absent here, instead we have a dark almost miserably bleak tone, which exists right up to the end title card which brings closure after the brilliant and iconic finale has made its mark. Jack Pierce's marvelous make-up and the birth of Karloff as a genre legend seals the deal on what is without doubt one of the genre's most important films. 9/10

Not a totally faithful adaptation of the Mary Shelley book, still extremely important for not just horror movies, but movies as a whole. I thought about coming at this review from the perspective of what 1931's _Frankenstein_ meant for the future of cinema, and how it was still essentially in its infancy and doing anything even close to what _Frankenstein_ did, changing the culture forever and remaining in the zeitgeist even now, almost a hundred years later, is a monumental achievement and should be viewed as such. But that's never really been my jam. _Frankenstein_ might have been great for the time, I don't know, I wasn't there, but I personally only ever found it to be okay. Re-watching it this Halloween was, I think the fourth time I've given it a go, and it's really not as enthralling as people seem to give it credit for. My roommate fell asleep. It's not that it's black and white either, it just doesn't have as clear a philosophical intention as the book, nor as gripping an output as more modern offerings.
_Final rating:★★½ - Not quite for me, but I definitely get the appeal._