A Silent Monster

            For a first-time viewer of Universal Studio’s 1931 Frankenstein, the most striking aspect of the film is how much I knew about it prior to actually viewing the film. The Frankenstein monster is an image that’s become so iconic in popular culture that the big reveal moment of the movie didn’t come as much of a surprise. I already knew exactly what I’d be seeing once Boris Karloff finished his slow turn around. The scene still managed to impress me, but it was for Karloff’s slow, suspense-building turn and the three rapid close ups of his face.

            While viewing this adaptation of the Frankenstein story, it was interesting for me to note the differences between the film and Mary Shelley’s novel. I’ve read the novel at least twice, once for pleasure and a second time as a text in a class. The most significant difference between the film and the novel for me is that Frankenstein’s monster is silent in the film—aside from his numerous off-screen moans and groans—and incredibly eloquent in the novel. I was surprised to realize that I found the film monster to be more frightening than the novel monster. In the novel, the monster spends a fair amount of time narrating his “origin” story, or the time period that passed after he escaped from Victor’s laboratory. The novel monster talks about reading Milton and thinking about the philosophy of life and what it truly means to be alive or living. While it’s interesting to have access to the monster’s mentality and his thought process on his own evolution, it makes the monster feel less monstrous and more like a tortured soul. It’s similar in my mind to the Rob Zombie remakes of Halloween, where Michael Myers’s back story is developed. Though it’s interesting to see how and when he (Myers) became the masked serial killer, it takes away from the character as well. A killer with a motive is much less horrifying than a masked man who slips away in the night and kills for reasons unknown.

            This is the same sort of idea that explains why I found the Universal film version of Frankenstein’s monster to be more intimidating. The viewer is unsure as to exactly how mentally developed the monster is. It also allows the viewer to make their own inferences regarding the monster’s motives and reasoning. I think there’s something infinitely more uncanny about an unspeaking horror than there is in a mentally complex villain who pauses every few minutes to explain what he’s doing and why. Boris Karloff’s portrayal of the monster is all the more effective this way as well; with a (mostly) silent monster, Karloff expresses the monster’s thoughts through movement and actions. Some of the most poignant moments of the film, like the monster reaching for the light and his time playing with the girl by the lake, are so affective because of his lack of speech.