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I recently watched several of the classic Universal Studios monster movies with my daughters.    Last night’s selection was Frankenstein.  They were somewhat unimpressed and I can understand why.  The story as presented in this version is kind of a mess, picking and choosing only some bits from Mary Shelley’s novel, and playing up the “monster” angle, presumably for ticket sales.  Besides Boris Karloff, who manages to show emotion despite the makeup, the performances were 2 dimensional.  Many of the scenes simply don’t fit;  I’m all for “enter late, leave early” but not “enter late, everybody already left”.  I found myself laughing at some of the timing.  In one of the scenes, the monster is heard upstairs, so all of the men go that way, only to hear that he is now in the cellar.  They rush there only to find that he is now menacing a woman on the ground floor.  He moves faster than the rage-infected zombies in 28 Days Later…!

I am going to try to find the 2004 TV miniseries, which is mentioned as the most faithful adaptation of the novel.  Meanwhile, we’ll continue our journey through the Universal Monsters flicks. There’s gotta be something in there that will give the girls a scare!