Monster of the Day #1724

Updated on April 18, 2018 By Ken Begg 15 Comments

Oh, the one by Mary W. Shelley.

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  • Beckoning Chasm

    Looks like the lightning is coming from him.

  • Gamera977

    What’s those things that look like a clock tower and some buildings down at the SE corner? Are they supposed to be actual buildings and the Monster is kaiju sized? He is holding what looks like a tree, a tree that about twice as tall as the clock tower. But the grass and the broken branch make the Monster look more human sized and the building look more like O scale railroad scenery. Maybe the perspective is just really off?

  • Beckoning Chasm

    I think he’s wrecking the doctor’s model train set. You know, for revenge and stuff.

  • bgbear_rnh

    All that ink they saved not spelling out “Wollstonecraft”.

  • Flangepart

    Gotta wonder…just how did Shelly describe the monsters head? All the images are classic ‘movie square head.’

  • bgbear_rnh

    You should read it. Been awhile all I recall was the description of being huge and his skin being yellowish and transparent. No flat top. I assume that comes from the idea of the brain transplant in the film.

  • Wade Harrell

    Didn’t Jack Pierce invent the flat top head for the movie? I re-read the book recently and it dawned on me that just about everything we associate with this story is absent from the original novel. There’s no castle Frankenstein (the family has a big house, but he makes his monster while at college in his apartment, may as well be a dorm room), No mobs of villagers with pitchforks, no lightning (it is mentioned at one point but not in association with the monster). Not only can the monster speak, he’s highly intelligent. I knew all that from my original reading as a teen but this time I realized that at no point does she say that he is sewn together from corpses! Frankenstein does mention that he got his materials from “the grave and charnel houses” but considering his living quarters I don’t think he’d be able to be hauling fresh body parts around without attracting attention. Also, later when he’s getting ready to build the “bride” he gathers materials in London and then takes a train to rural Scotland (or Ireland? I forget) and then takes a boat to a remote island to do the work. I don’t see him doing all that with a bunch of cadavers! I think he was mostly working with ashes and maybe dry bones or something. In Edison’s version of the story the monster emerges from a cauldron of chemicals, which may be closer to what Shelley had in mind. The corpse idea may have been invented later.

  • It’s probably just me, but he looks more like Jethro from the Beverly Hillbillies than something the Good Baron created,

  • Ken_Begg

    The two are not mutually exclusive.

  • Gamera977

    The only film I’ve seen close to the novel is Dan Curtis’ Frankenstein. Bo Svenson as the Monster in this version gets loads of dialog and gets to play as a largely sympathetic character. The only real downside for the movie to me was as it was a TV production and does look kinda cheap.

  • Wade Harrell

    I’ll have to look that one up! I always found it curious that no one has ever really tried to make a more novel-accurate version. The monster in the novel is actually scarier because he is actively seeking revenge against Frankenstein. He isn’t just a misunderstood beast, he knows exactly how to torment the man who created him by seeking out and murdering the people he loves.

  • The Rev.

    The line, “I shall be with you on your wedding night,” is possibly the most terrifying threat I’ve ever encountered. And yet, despite its capacity for calculated vengeance, his creation manages to remain sympathetic throughout, particularly at the end. It’s really a good read overall, despite the weaknesses in the middle third.

  • Wade Harrell

    Yes! The potential for a genuinely scary horror movie in the original novel is tremendous! One other major difference between the way Frankenstein himself is portrayed. In movies he’s usually either a basically good guy who’s ambitions get him in trouble who realizes his mistake only when its too late (like in the Universal movies) OR else a totally immoral and ruthless scientist who has no qualms about playing god (like the Peter Cushing version). In the novel, he’s basically just an entitled jerk whose refusal to face up to is actions ends up costing many innocents their lives.

  • Point taken.

  • David Lee Ingersoll

    The Danny Boyle directed, live production starring Jonny Lee Miller and Benedict Cumberbatch is the most faithful adaptation of the novel that I’ve yet seen. Unfortunately it isn’t available on DVD. You either had to watch it in the theatre or via a pirated version.