Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (1994)

Since I reviewed Bram Stoker's Dracula, it's only logical that I review a similar movie regarding the Count's pop culture buddy.

Frankenstein’s Monster and Dracula are as common a pop culture one-two punch as Superman and Batman. If there’s a movie with one character, you can bet that the other will follow suit shortly afterwards. Not surprisingly, there have been stories where both superheroes and both monsters team up.

Hence, it also shouldn’t be surprising that, when Columbia Pictures claimed that (falsely, as it turned out) they would put out the definitive film adaptation of Dracula with Bram Stoker’s Dracula in 1992, Mary Shelley’s equally classic novel Frankenstein would get similar treatment from the same studio just two years later as (what else?) Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein.

The aforementioned Dracula film was directed by Francis Ford Coppola, who produced the following Frankenstein picture. But the film was directed by Kenneth Branagh, who also stars as the title character. The role of the monster that Frankenstein creates which sets the story’s tragedy into motion is played by Robert De Niro.

For reasons I’ll get into shortly, the film itself, while it certainly has its good points (much like Coppola’s Dracula film), didn’t live up to the legacy of the original films by Universal and later Hammer.

Like the book, this movie begins with Captain Walton (Aidan Quinn) leading an expedition to reach the North Pole in 1794. His crew are getting on his ass more and more to return home because of both the harsh conditions and an unknown assailant, who in self defense kills the explorers’ dogs.

As Walton’s ship is trapped in ice, the captain comes across another traveler, who identifies himself as Victor Frankenstein (Branagh). Although Walton is determined not to let what he describes as “some phantom” get in the way of his exploring, he allows Victor to tell him and his crew the story and how it relates to their unknown assailant.

The flashback starts with Victor and his adopted sister Elizabeth (Helena Bonham Carter) growing up in Geneva. The death of his mother, following the birth of his brother William (Charles Wyn-Davies), prompts Victor to promise Elizabeth that he’ll seek a way to conquer death during his studies at Ingolstadt.

During his time at the university, Victor befriends Henry Clerval (Tom Hulce), and gains the respect of his professor Waldman (John Cleese). Eventually, Victor becomes obsessed with the idea of creating life. However, Waldman implores him not to go through with any plans he may have in that direction, as according to the professor’s experiences, they’ll result in nothing good.

Not long afterward, Waldman is murdered by a madman (De Niro), who’s subsequently hanged. The loss of his mentor pushes Victor to break into Waldman’s lab in order to obtain his notes and begin his creation experiment. Ironically, Victor uses the body of the criminal and inserts Waldman’s brilliant mind into it.

As with all Frankenstein pictures, we see lots of laboratory equipment buzzing around as the creature comes into existence one faithful night. I must point out here that the novel itself actually doesn’t do much explaining into how the monster is put together and given life. Some have said that Shelley kept this part of the story deliberately vague so as to suggest the possibility of black magic being used. Hence, with this film claiming to be the most faithful film adaptation of her book and all, I can’t help but think there was a missed opportunity here to give us a creation scene that for once didn’t require anything that buzzes.

Victor actually climbs onto the case which houses his creation, imploring it to “Live!!”

We see the creature’s eyes open before he pops out of his man-made cocoon. But the sight of what Victor has created makes the scientist recoil in horror and simply abandon him (thanks, Dad!).

The creature covers himself with Victor’s coat and runs off into the wilderness, with his creator’s journal.

He later finds a barn occupied by a family. The creature hides inside clandestinely, and as the months pass, learns to speak and read as he watches the family interact. In addition, he reads Victor’s journal, learning the story of his own creation. As the family deals with violent debt collectors, the creature soon takes it upon himself to actually talk with the family’s blind patriarch. But just as he expresses his kindness for the creature, his family chases the creature away, thinking he’s assaulting the blind man.

After the family bolts, the creature, in anguish, torches their abandoned home. He then shouts to the sky, “I will have revenge! Frankenstein!” I guess this was meant to be similar to when Kirk shouted “Khan!!!” in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, but it just ends up falling flat.

During this time, Victor has returned to Geneva, believing his creation has died of cholera (as there was an outbreak of it while he was playing in his lab). As he plans to marry Elizabeth, Victor learns that his brother William (now played by Ryan Smith) has been murdered, and Elizabeth’s friend Justine (Trevyn McDowell) has been convicted of the crime.

As Victor and Elizabeth recover from the horrific sight of Justine being hanged by a lynch mob, the former is startled by the appearance of the creature, who demands that he meet him at the nearby mountains, which the creature calls “the sea of ice.”

At their meeting, Victor sits in both astonishment and horror as his creation reveals how knowledgeable and resentful he has become. But the creature has only one demand of his creator: he wants Victor to make a companion for him. This request terrifies Victor, but the monster’s promise to disappear forever leads him to attempt to comply. Elizabeth is angered when Victor tells her that their wedding will have to be postponed in order to give him time to complete this work (which he keeps hidden from her).

But Victor begins to have second thoughts when the creature insists that Justine’s body be used for this new creation. Despite the monster’s threats that he’ll bring horror into his life, Victor breaks his promise.

After Victor marries Elizabeth, the creature kills Victor’s father on their wedding night. Despite Victor’s best efforts, the creature later breaks into his bedroom, and after some brief words, kills Elizabeth by ripping her heart out. The creature even shows the heart to Victor and says, “I keep my promises!”

We now come to what is my least favorite part of this movie. An anguished Victor desperately attempts to bring Elizabeth back to life. Like his previous attempt, this one proves successful after placing his wife’s head on Justine’s body. But no sooner is Elizabeth reanimated than the creature appears, happy with this new creation. He and Victor actually attempt to win Elizabeth’s affections before she commits suicide, in anguish that she herself is now a horrific-looking creature. Elizabeth sets herself on fire, which leads to the Frankenstein mansion burning to the ground, although both Victor and the creature escape.

Back on Walton’s boat, Victor says that it’s been months since he lost Elizabeth, and he’s been tracking his creation in order to kill him. But those months have taken a toll on him, and afflicted with pneumonia, he quietly dies. The creature then appears to Walton and his crew. He tearfully tells them that Victor was his father. Victor has a funeral pyre prepared for him and the creature stands with it as he joins his creator by burning himself alive. The sight prompts Walton to quietly order his ship home.

Overall, the film itself is more worthy of its title than Bram Stoker’s Dracula. This is not to say it doesn’t have its flaws, however.

As I mentioned earlier, the scene in which Elizabeth is briefly brought back to life is the weakest part of the film. This is because the sequence is not only not in the book, it fails to be the emotionally moving moment it strives to be because it’s unnecessarily stretched out. In the book, Victor simply pursues the creature to the Arctic after Elizabeth’s death, which is quick and jolting.

In the plus column, Branagh does a good job making Victor as likable as he was in the book. Bonham Carter is fine as Elizabeth, although like many of the other actresses who have played this role, she doesn’t exactly have enough screen time to make a lasting impression.

The makeup for the creature, by Daniel Parker, Paul Engelen, and Carol Hemming, is appropriately gasp-inducing.

Ironically, another factor that contributes to this movie’s flaws is De Niro’s performance as the Creature. He certainly gives it his best shot, but never truly draws the viewer into the character’s plight the way Boris Karloff did. As a result, all we really see is De Niro playing a role rather than a true cinematic incarnation of that role.

When the late, great Jonathan Demme was casting Hannibal Lecter for his terror classic The Silence of the Lambs, he said that the first person the studio wanted for the role was Sean Connery. Demme, however, prevailed when his own choice for that role, Anthony Hopkins, was cast instead. I bring this up because De Niro playing the creature here is probably what would’ve happened if Connery had played Lecter. Sure, it’s an awesome actor in the part, but said actor’s own persona overshadows any attempt to make the character his own.

In fairness, the novel Dracula has an intense climax. Coppola’s film made the mistake of inserting a stupid love story into the narrative. Shelley’s book, on the other hand, has a more melancholy ending, and while this film certainly adheres to that, it fails to make it an emotionally involving experience for the audience, especially when you take into account that many of the classic Frankenstein pictures, including the 1931 original, all have more lively endings (complete with explosions).

Ultimately, this movie may not be a classic, but it definitely tries.

Halloween (1978)

It's Halloween, so what better way to prepare than to look at a classic movie that has the same name?

It’s Halloween time again, so let’s take a look at the classic 1978 movie which shares the same name as the holiday. This movie, like the previous year’s Star Wars, was not only successful, but had a huge impact on popular culture. Even people who aren’t fans of the horror genre recognize the film’s title and have a general idea of what it’s about.

Again, like the aforementioned George Lucas film, Halloween‘s success soon brought a slew of imitators, as well as sequels. But what are the reasons this movie continues to endure in the nearly four decades since its release? What makes it continue to stand head and shoulders over the many films which tried to duplicate it? Here now are five reasons why John Carpenter’s film have become a terror classic.

1. The simplicity of the story

The plot of Halloween is that a young boy named Michael Myers murders his sister one Halloween night and gets institutionalized as a result. Exactly 15 years later, Michael escapes from the institute he’s been held in. His doctor, Sam Loomis (Donald Pleasence), correctly deduces that Michael is returning to his old haunts in Haddonfield, Illinois so as to continue his reign of terror and frantically goes after him. As Michael makes himself at home again, he targets a shy girl named Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) as well as her two BFF’s Annie Brackett (Nancy Loomis) and Lynda Van Der Klok (P.J. Soles).

As you can see, the plot isn’t overly complicated with red herrings galore (a la the Saw movies). What we have is a simple setup of a maniac focusing his horrific energy on people who are innocent victims of circumstance. In light of recent events, this aspect of the film must sadly be considered relevant. The Halloween sequels would later give an explanation for why Michael sets Laurie in his sights (to the chagrin of some fans), but that doesn’t diminish the impact of this aspect of the film.

Regardless, Carpenter, along with the film’s cast and crew of course, take this simple premise and put a lot of heart and skill into it.

2. The homages

What attracted Carpenter to making Halloween was his chance to make a movie like the horror flicks he loved when he was younger. He would be the first to say that one film Halloween owes a debt to is Psycho. Indeed, Pleasence’s character is named for the one played by John Gavin in that movie. Tommy Doyle (Brian Andrews), the boy Laurie is babysitting in the film, is named after the character played by Wendell Corey in another Hitchcock film, Rear Window. Carpenter would also call Halloween his “Argento film,” referring to shots in the film that were inspired by similar ones in Dario Argento movies such as Deep Red and Suspiria.

But the homages in the film aren’t limited to the horror and suspense genres. Annie’s father, sheriff Leigh Brackett (Charles Cyphers), was named for the legendary science fiction author of the same name. Brackett also penned such classic movies as The Big Sleep and Rio Bravo. Her final film as a screenwriter was The Empire Strikes Back. She died after only penning the first draft of that script, but happily, Lucas gave her a co-screenwriting credit on the film with Lawrence Kasdan.

While this may have been unintentional, I’ve always thought Halloween possessed another homage that was a bit of foreshadowing. At one point, Lindsay (Kyle Richards), whom Laurie and Annie are babysitting, is watching the classic film The Thing From Another World. As most everyone knows by now, Carpenter would remake that very film as The Thing just four years after Halloween (a remake which many, including myself, view as superior to the original).

Of course, the list of homages in Halloween would be incomplete without mentioning the fact that Curtis herself is the daughter of Janet Leigh, whose many great films include her role as the shower victim in Psycho. And speaking of Curtis…

3. The victims/potential victims

As he was the biggest name in the cast, Donald Pleasence naturally had above-the-title billing for Halloween. While Curtis became a star thanks to this film, Pleasence’s contribution was invaluable. He was already an established character actor by 1978 for, among other things, terrorizing James Bond in You Only Live Twice and even appearing in Lucas’s first film THX-1138. But his role as the Van Helsing-esque Loomis rightly became his most famous and one which he would reprise in four of the Halloween sequels. The last of these, Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers, became his final movie, as he died shortly after completing it.

Many of Halloween‘s imitators never took the time to make the characters we’re supposed to root for very appealing. This was obviously due to the desires of those filmmakers to just get down to business regarding the bloodshed on screen. Usually in these films, it was easy to figure out who would die and who would live to see the ending credits.

Halloween itself became criticized for giving birth to the cliche of the virginal one being the final survivor, as Laurie is not as socially active as Annie and Lynda. But I’ve always felt that was an unfair criticism, because putting aside the fact that Laurie expresses her desire to be as social as her friends, all three of the girls have nice bonding moments in the movie. Hence, Annie and Lynda both become sympathetic characters because of the love they have for Laurie (I’ve heard some say that Soles played a similar role two years earlier in Carrie, but anyone who’s seen both films knows that a big difference is that her character in that film, Norma, is a mean bitch who helps push Carrie to the brink at the film’s climax, whereas Lynda is more of a sweetheart). In their first scene together, Laurie mopes that she has nothing to do the following day, when a school dance is taking place. Lynda, who’s a cheerleader, comments, “It’s your own fault,” but her tone says that Laurie herself could easily change that. Likewise, Annie later politely scolds Laurie for not planning to go to the dance and even attempts to give her an unwanted hand when Laurie gives her the name of a boy she’d like to go with.

As a result, both Annie and Lynda’s death scenes are actually quite sad, which definitely cannot be said for many other deaths in slasher films. They also make us hope Laurie doesn’t meet the same fate, making her shyness/virginity irrelevant.

4. The music

Like Psycho, Jaws, and other classic horror movies, Halloween has a classic musical score, which was composed by Carpenter himself. In addition to the title theme, Halloween also has a nice theme for Laurie, which is reminiscent of the “Tubular Bells” motif from The Exorcist. The track that plays when Laurie attempts to escape from Michael’s grasp is especially nerve-wracking.

5. The ending

At the climax of the film, Laurie believes she’s killed Michael and promptly tells Lindsay and Tommy to go to a neighbor’s house to call the police. After they leave, Michael slowly revives and attempts to kill Laurie again. But Loomis sees the children running frantically out of the house and runs inside to save Laurie by shooting Michael multiple times. Michael falls out of the house’s second story window onto the ground below. After Loomis confirms Laurie’s thoughts that Michael is the boogeyman, he goes out to see Michael’s body, only to find it gone. We hear Michael breathing while seeing the places he’s been previously before the ending credits roll.

Like The Silence of the Lambs thirteen years later, this film has an ending in which the monster of the film is still at large, leaving the viewer shaking and going WTF? However, Loomis repeatedly tells people throughout the film that Michael himself is “purely and simply evil.” So maybe we shouldn’t be surprised that unloading a revolver into him won’t do the trick. Like the Headless Horseman in Washington Irving’s The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and the numerous movie psychos Michael inspired, maybe there’s just no way to kill a merciless force of nature like this.

Halloween would not only get sequels, but a bona fide remake in 2007, which got a sequel of its own two years later. There have even been recent reports of a new Halloween flick coming up with Curtis reprising her role (she played Laurie again in Halloween II, Halloween H20, and Halloween: Resurrection).

The Michael Myers mask, not surprisingly, has become a popular one to wear when going trick-or-treating. Interestingly, one person we have to thank for that mask is William Shatner. Halloween‘s production designer Tommy Lee Wallace (who would later write and direct the Michael Myers-less Halloween III: Season of the Witch) took a Captain Kirk mask, turned it inside out, widened the eyes, and painted the mask white. Happily for horror fans, the result was something nightmares are made of.

Curtis kept acting in the horror genre for a while, appearing in classics like The Fog (which was also directed by Carpenter and co-starred Nancy Loomis, Charles Cyphers, and even Janet Leigh) and Prom Night. By the end of the ’80s, however, she managed to leave an equally memorable mark in the comedy genre thanks to her work in films like Trading Places and A Fish Called Wanda.

Again like Star Wars, the studios weren’t exactly expecting this film to make much of an impact when it was being made. But the end result ended up being a bigger success and game changer than anyone imagined.