When Mary Shelley wrote “Frankenstein,” a melancholy and gruesome novel about a scientist attempting to create life, as part of a contest with her husband Percy Shelley and writers John Polidori and Lord Byron to pen the scariest horror story, she revolutionized fiction in general. One of the most famous and widely imitated stories ever written, Shelley’s 1818 gothic novel is widely considered the first real science fiction story, and a massive influence on speculative fiction as a genre. The book’s plot, about the creature that the titular doctor creates developing intelligence and coming to despair over his lonely place in the world, thoughtfully probes into ideas of nature vs. nurture and what defines humanity that is still subject to debate and analysis two centuries later.
As influential as Shelley’s book is in literature, it might be even more impactful in the world of cinema. The images of “Frankenstein” that have come to be most widely understood in the popular consciousness — a shambling green monster, a mad scientist with a hunchbacked servant, a dark castle in which the experiment is conducted — have less to do with the original source text than it does with the 1931 James Whale film version, made for Universal Pictures. The most iconic and popular of the studio’s monster movies, Whale’s film forever defined how people interpret and color the Frankenstein tale going forward, and led to direct parodies (“Young Frankenstein,”) and indirect riffs (“The Curse of Frankenstein,” “The Rocky Horror Picture Show”) that have themselves become iconic. While purists may scoff at Whale’s film as inaccurate to the original text, it shows the malleability of the premise, and how the tale’s broad outlines could form the basis for something that’s original and wonderful in its own right.
In celebration of the impending release of Guillermo Del Toro’s faithful adaptation of the original Mary Shelley novel, IndieWire is taking a look back at the best films to interpret the Frankenstein story. These entries can include direct “Frankenstein” branded films like the iconic 1931 original James Whale film, or movies like “Edward Scissorhands” that take obvious inspiration from the tale of a mad scientist attempting to create life. Read on for the 8 best “Frankenstein” movies, ranked from worst to best.
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“Flesh for Frankenstein” (1973)
Image Credit: Courtesy Everett Collection More goofily provocative than it is sexy (although it is plenty sexy), “Flesh For Frankenstein” is the classic story as a bawdy romp, filtered through the transgressive style of producer Andy Warhol. His collaborator Paul Morrissey directs the film, which transplants the story of the Mary Shelley novel to Serbia, and casts a committed Udo Kier as a Baron Frankenstein attempting to create the “perfect Serbian master race” to restore the country to glory. His experiment goes astray, however, when he accidentally uses the brain of a pious monk (Srdjan Zelenovic) for his male creature, instead of the randy stable boy (Joe Dallesandro) seducing his wife. Campily hilarious but visually exquisite in its excess (it initially screened in 3D, mainly so ripped out organs could be shoved in theatergoers faces) “Flesh For Frankenstein” is the platonic ideal of the Midnight Movie, and the only Frankenstein movie to remind us that to know death “you have to fuck life in the gall bladder.”
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“The Spirit of the Beehive” (1973)
Image Credit: Courtesy Everett Collection Strictly speaking, “The Spirit of the Beehive” is not a “Frankenstein” adaptation at all. But Victor Erice’s acclaimed portrait of adolescence in fascist Spain uses the monster — and especially the 1931 Boris Karloff version — as a window into the mind of its young protagonist, shy Ana (Ana Torrent). Enchanted by a screening of the film in her local cinema, and fixated on the monster’s loneliness and tragedy, she daydreams of meeting the monster, and eventually begins helping a wounded Republican soldier in hiding, finding parallels in his isolation with the figure from her favorite film. A rich and multi-layered film, “The Spirit of the Beehive” trusts a lot on the universal recognition of Frankenstein as a symbol of the other, of a figure isolated from society. In that way, it’s one of the films on this list most faithful to Shelley’s original work.
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“Edward Scissorhands” (1990)
Image Credit: ©20thCentFox/Courtesy Everett Collection Tim Burton is a director who sometimes wraps his films in so much style and arch humor that they feel deeply inhuman. That’s not a problem for “Edward Scissorhands,” a suburbia satire wrapped in a Hot Topic-styled “Frankenstein” update that turns the bare bones of Shelley’s story into a star-crossed tragic romance. Johnny Depp, in one of his most poignant collaborations with Burton, plays the visually distinctive title character, a lab experiment with knives for hands whose adopted into a small town family and faces bullying and exclusion from the small-minded townsfolk. Best remembered as a technical achievement, “Edward Scissorhands” does look and sound fabulous, between memorable production and costume design and the best score of Danny Elfman’s career. But it’s Depp’s wistful chemistry with Winona Ryder as Scissorhands’ dream girl that makes the film a classic.
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“Frankenstein” (1931)
Image Credit: Courtesy Everett Collection Famously, the monster in “Frankenstein” looks and behaves almost nothing like the monster in the original Shelley novel. The protruding metal rods and the giant stitched together forehead were all the vision of makeup designer Jack Quince; the monster’s shambling movements and tragically childlike understanding of the word the result of Boris Karloff’s subtly sincere, moving performance. James Whale’s 1931 Universal Pictures classic played fast and loose with the original Mary Shelley novel, and in the process defined how the general public would understand and envision the words “Frankenstein” for ages to come. At 71 minutes, Whale’s film is lean and mean but still effective, an evocative portrait of scientific ambition curdled into monstrosity, practically the platonic ideal of the monster movie genre.
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“The Rocky Horror Picture Show” (1975)
Image Credit: ©20thCentFox/Courtesy Everett Collection The novel “Frankenstein” has always been ripe for queer interpretations throughout history. “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” — a “Frankenstein” retelling in which the good doctor is an alien crossdresser played by a seductive, fishnet-clad Tim Curry — makes that subtext totally explicit, for a wild and raucous musical comedy about two American squares getting corrupted by a strange houseful of freaks. Adapted by Jim Sharman and Richard O’Brien from their hit stage production, “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” is in many respects the definitive midnight movie, with a gigantic culture around it that has endured for 50 years. Its beloved songs — “Time Warp,” “Sweet Transvestite,” “Hot Patootie – Bless My Soul” — make it a counterculture joy, but it’s Curry’s anguished performance as a scientist attempting to create the perfect male hunk to love that holds the movie together.
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“The Curse of Frankenstein” (1957)
Image Credit: Courtesy Everett Collection Hammer Horror’s “Frankenstein” series is, at least in the States, not as well known as the definitive Universal Pictures series. But the first film in its franchise might be even better than the iconic 1931 James Whale film, in no small part due to Peter Cushing’s definitive performance as the doctor, who here is finally as interesting as the creature he creates. Vastly less sympathetic than the already flawed Shelley hero, Cushing’s Frankenstein is a sociopath with a god complex who is willing to murder and maim for the sake of his creation, and Cushing’s ice cold screen presence makes him the real terror of the movie. He’s cast opposite another horror icon in Christopher Lee, who dons the makeup to play a mindless version of the monster that’s a little less poignant than the original, mostly an extension of his creator’s bloodlust. Directed in lurid, violent color by Terence Fisher, “The Curse of Frankenstein” is the Shelley story at its most grungy and sickening, and critics hated it. But it holds up as a violent, kitschy treat, and a series of five sequels would see Cushing’s Frankenstein become more depraved and amoral on every step of his journey.
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“Young Frankenstein” (1974)
Image Credit: ©20thCentFox/Courtesy Everett Collection One of the funniest comedies of all time, Mel Brooks’ “Young Frankenstein” works because it recognizes the inherent potential for farce and comedy hiding in the contemplative horror of the original Shelley story. Starring Gene Wilder as a descendant of Frankenstein (sorry, “Fronk-en-steen”) who ventures back to the old family castle in Transylvania and gets sucked back into the family business, it’s filled with loving odes to the Universal Monster series, and renders its goofy tale in gorgeous black and white like a real film of the ’30s. The ensemble is top notch (from Peter Boyle as a gnarling monster turned sophisticated gentleman to Gene Hackman in a scene-stealing role as the blind hermit), and the jokes are quick and funny, especially in the signature “Puttin’ on the Ritz” performance. It’s a film that celebrates, rather than condescends, its source material, and the result is a pure classic.
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“Bride of Frankenstein” (1935)
Image Credit: Courtesy Everett Collection One of those rare sequels that’s superior to the original in almost every way, James Whale’s “Bride of Frankenstein” is a poignant triumph, and the peak of the monster movie as an art form. Funny, camp, but also deeply wounded with sadness, it adapts the rough second half of Shelley’s original novel, where the monster seeks out Frankenstein with the intent of creating a bride that can be his own. In the book, the experiment never comes to fruition, but in “Bride of Frankenstein” it results in Elsa Lanchester’s famous electric-shocked haired creature, a mate for the monster that nonetheless rejects him just like everyone else who has ever seen him. It’s in this film that the character’s greatest potential, as a vehicle to explore isolation and alienation, fully emerges, in a tragicomic ending that’s truly moving and artful. The perfect synthesis of Whale’s sensibilities, with queer undertones that have been picked apart and examined for decades, “The Bride of Frankenstein” is not just the ultimate Frankenstein film, it’s one of the greatest movies ever made.
