MONSTER-MONTH: A COUNTDOWN TO HALLOWEEN (Day 28)

Tonight we go all new wave with the Monster as we take a look at perhaps the blondest Doctor Frankenstein and the most exotic Bride of Frankenstein ever put to film!

THE BRIDE is a 1985 adaptation of Mary Shelley’s FRANKENSTEIN starring Sting as the Baron Charles Frankenstein, Jennifer Beals as his female creation, Eva, Clancy Brown as Viktor, the Monster, and David Rappaport as Rinaldo the Dwarf.

The film begins with the creation of Eva as a mate for the Monster, Viktor.  Upon her creation Eva’s physical near-perfection is noted by all and her rejection of Viktor causes the Monster to fly into a rage that destroys Frankenstein’s laboratory.  Dr. Frankenstein and Eva are seemingly the only survivors and so they flee back to Charles’ castle.  Charles falls in love with her and attempts to make her his ideal woman.  Very Pygmalion of the good Doctor, isn’t it?

Now Charles Frankenstein is a kind of feminist in that he wants his creation to be a new kind of woman--one bold and independent as any man.  Soon enough, during his teachings, Eva shows enough promise to match her teacher.  And so a coming out party is planned for the bride.  All goes swimmingly until a common house cat appears and she reacts in a savage and violent way as she had never seen one before.

Sting wants her to be his and his alone and yet she becomes intrigued by another man and has a liason with him.  Jealous, Frankenstein reveals that he is Eva’s creator and shows her his lab and journal so as to convince her of his power over her--in a sense declaring that he’s her father as well as her husband-to-be.

Up until that point, Eva had believed that she was an amnesiac.  Even still, this new knowledge steers her away from her strong independence not one bit.  She declares that he will have no hold over her so long as she lives.

It is this other half of the story that most intrigued me as a viewer, I mean, sure the movie is called “The Bride” but that’s not what I tuned in for!  Clancy Brown, in the earliest role I remember seeing him, was a fine Monster.  The make-up is more subtle in this incarnation than in most.  With a normal flesh-tone and merely an enlarged forhead and some scars, this Monster can almost pass for human rather than humunculus.

Having survived, the Monster wanders into the countryside where Rinaldo, a dwarf, joins him on his journey of self-discovery.  Eventually they become involved in a circus, whose owner eventually kills Rinaldo.  Viktor is thrown into a rage and sorrow deeper than he has known.  Eventually he decides to return to Castle Frankenstein for Eva.

By now, Eva discovers her psychic link to the monster.  She then rejects the Baron as the Monster arrives to rescue her.  In the end, the  Baron falls to his death and Viktor and Eva reunite and leave for Venice.

Jennifer Beals earned a nomination for a Razzie Award for Worst Actress.

Sites cited:

http://horror-movies.wikia.com/wiki/The_Bride

http://www.alifeatthemovies.com/movie-of-the-day/the-bride/

Sunday, October 28, 2012 on TCM:

6:30am - D.O.A. (1950)

8pm - 20 MILLION MILES TO EARTH (1957)

9:30pm - EARTH VS. THE FLYING SAUCERS (1956)

11pm - FIRST MEN IN THE MOON (1964)

1am - THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA (1925)

2:45am - M (1931)

But wait: CHEST TATOO!