It is infuriatingly difficult to write about a film you love. I love Bride of Frankenstein.
Trying to locate the source of this affection — to contextualize it in ways that might be interesting and don’t amount to gushing, “Hey, you know what is great?
Reflecting, in 1967, on the experience of seeing old movies on TV, notorious curmudgeon/amazing writer Pauline Kael wrote, “Horror and fantasy films … are surprisingly effective, perhaps because they are so primitive in their appeal that the qualities of the imagery matter less than the basic suggestions.
There are few more iconic images in cinema than Frankenstein’s monster rising from the operating table or, in its sequel, his bride standing straight and horrified, with the lightning shock of white through her towering hair. In fact, they might be so iconic that no one watches the movies anymore – we already know what happens.