Released the same year as the original Dracula film, this film tells the classic story of a monster brought to life. In it, the German Dr. Henry Frankenstein ignores his fiancée and father's pleas to abandon his research because he feels he's on the brink of discovering the creation of life. He succeeds, but is horrified when his creation kills his hunchbacked assistant for abusing him. Learning that the monster accidentally received the brain of a former psychotic serial killer, Frankenstein decides to destroy it, setting it on a path of destruction and mayhem.
I read the original book by Mary Shelley, and even visited the real Castle Frankenstein in Germany, where she supposedly was inspired to write her novel. Seeing the original horror movie that brought Frankenstein to public knowledge was a real treat.
It was nice to see that, despite being accused of being mad, Dr. Frankenstein was actually a decent man, hell-bent on proving his hypothesis. Upon failing to create decent human life, he gives up and goes off to marry his fiancée like he promised her.
They also explained that this wasn't reanimation, as all the parts that made up the monster were from random dead humans, not one individual. So the hypothesis was that it was possible to create a unique life form that had never existed before, which Frankenstein proved.
All in all, it was a great film and a stellar acting job by Boris Karloff (the monster), who would go on to star in many horror films to come.
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