The Bite #68

A look at James Whale, BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN, and MORE!

July 23, 2019

In this Issue:

Horror History: Married to the Monster: On James Whale and Bride of Frankenstein
Image of the Week: Beep Beep!
Tiny Bites – This Week’s Best Horror Headlines
Things We Love: Groovy
Hey, That’s Us! – Shudder in the News

HORROR HISTORY: MARRIED TO THE MONSTER: ON JAMES WHALE AND BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN

Who’s your favorite Universal monster? Though she isn’t even shown until the tail end of the film, the Bride of Frankenstein just hits all the right notes for me. This week, we celebrate the birthday of the Bride‘s filmmaker, the legendary James Whale. Born on July 22nd 1889, the British director dabbled in several genres and crossed over to theatrical work, but he is most known for his contribution to horror, going 4-for-4 with a handful of classics: Frankenstein (1931), The Old Dark House (1932), The Invisible Man (1933) andBride of Frankenstein (1935).

With Frankenstein, Whale fully leaned into the sensibilities laid out in Mary Shelley’s influential novel, shaping and honing the mad scientist archetype that endures in horror and sci-fi cinema today. As with so many horror films of the time, Frankenstein followed the lead of Germany’s post-war Expressionist movement, making the fallout just as monstrous as war itself. As horror scholar David J. Skal described it in his referential gem The Monster Show, Whale’s picture is “a cultural dumping ground for the processed images of men blown to pieces, and the shell-shocked fantasy of putting them back together again.”

Its sequel, Bride of Frankenstein, continues on the quack doctor train by bringing back Colin Clive as Henry Frankenstein and adding Ernest Thesiger (a scene-stealer in The Old Dark House) as Doctor Septimus Pretorius. Whale throws the fairer sex into the mix this time around, however, with Elsa Lanchester pulling double duty as Mary Shelley and the titular Bride.

The film achieves the singular success of being heralded as both a camp classic and a Gothic horror staple in its cheekiness and refraction of the sexual anxieties du jour. The Production Code Administration crusaders had a field day from script to screen; not so much with the body trafficking of women or even the coded homosexuality (which they didn’t seem to catch at all), but with the low cut of Elsa Lanchester’s dress in the opening sequence and blasphemous comparisons of Dr. Frankenstein and Pretorius to God.

For all of their pearl-clutching, the PCA only succeeded in getting a few superficial bits and pieces excised, while the most subversive commentary (like the Creature as a Christ figure and straight-up necrophilia) was spared from the cutting room floor. All the better; the result is a visual feast of the macabre, serving up socio-political dishes that would be far too spicy in a straightforward drama.

Both auteur and architect, Whale threw accelerant onto the flame that The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari started, ushering in a bar-setting cycle of horror cinema. This week, throw the switch in his honor.

*Anya Stanley is a film critic, Dread Central columnist, and Halloween 6apologist whose sole focus is on the horror genre. Her work has appeared inRue Morgue, Birth.Movies.Death., and Fangoria Magazine.

IMAGE OF THE WEEK

Beep Beep!

MAD Magazine may be shutting down after 67 yearsof snappy satire, but we’ll still have the memories. Like this moment on the set of the original ITminiseries with Tim Curry, Seth Green, and Emily Perkins.

TINY BITES

AMERICAN HORROR STORY, DOCTOR STRANGE AND MORE

Last week at San Diego Comic-Con the cast ofNOS4A2 weighed in on the legacy of horror and its influences on their work.

It’s back to camp for American Horror Story’s 9th season, 1984, with some fresh test footage and suggestive merch out of SDCC.

The SDCC goodies continued with a panel on DC Comics’ past and future with spooky comic booksfrom the classic House of Secrets to The Dollhouse Family and beyond.

According to Marvel’s SDCC panel, the Doctor Strangesequel, In The Multiverse Of Madness, will be the MCU’s first horror film with Scott Derrickson back directing.

Reddit user today_okay asked the Internet what horror movies folks thought they could easily survive, andBuzzFeed made a list of the best answers.

Laurie Strode and Michael Myers aren’t through with each other just yet – Blumhouse says there will be twomore Halloween movies to look forward to.

The new Halloween movies won’t be here until 2020 and 2021, but at least we have this great behind-the-scenes clip of John Carpenter directing Donald Pleasence from the first Halloween in 1978.

And Damon Lindelof’s coming back to the movies with a twisted look at luxury hunting trips where humans are the prey.

THINGS WE LOVE: GROOVY

Don’t forget to say the words – Klaatu Barada … Necktie? Nickel? Nikto! Infect your soul with “Chainsaw Hand”, a killer horror punk ode to Evil Deadfrom Bad Whoremoans.