31 Days of Horror Reviews 2018: Mary Shelley's Frankenstein

While following more closely to Mary Shelley’s Gothic novel as well as being decently paced and well acted, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein directed and starring Kenneth Branagh couldn’t seem to match the scale set by producer Coppola’s Dracula film two years prior.

REVIEW

To be fair, there hasn’t been (at least from what I gathered) a direct adaptation of the original novel, which does make this film very unique in its own way. It even has some surprising performances from actors you wouldn’t expect to be in a film like this. John Cleese, a known comedic actor, plays Victor’s (Branagh) mentor Dr. Waldman and there was never a moment where I laughed at whatever he said. Robert De Niro plays the Creature and his able to convey the emerging humanity and vengeful rage just as well as Karloff did.

The problem that I had with the film was that it feels very lacking coming off the heels of Bram Stoker’s Dracula. The sets and lighting design feel very bland and the camera work feels very standard for most of the film. When it actually uses unique camera work, it’s almost always an arc shot; that’s where the camera does a full 360 around the subject and it’s used in the film to express joy and even fear. There are good shots in the film and good use of color, but they’re very few and far in between.

It’s a middle of the road kind of film: I’m glad I watched it, but I’m not in a rush to watch it again.