We’re on Day 8 of our 30-day horror challenge, and the subject of today is “The Best Horror Sequel.”
The question isn’t “My Favorite”… which would likely be “Terrifier 2” or “Exorcist 3” or “Evil Dead 2” or “Aliens.” Today’s question asks what I think “The Best” horror sequel is. I think on it for a bit, and decide it’s probably gotta be “Bride of Frankenstein.”
It’s a really good sequel, one of those sequels that outperforms the original, and probably one of the best sequels ever put to film. The Bride’s scene is very brief but, at the same time, manages to create a visual horror icon that has endured for nearly 100 years now. The visuals and cinematography, casting and music, all top-notch. The movie digs into the human condition, finding sympathy for the monster while exploring themes of loneliness, of being outcast, fears of society as well as some careful exploration (because the censors wanted to butcher this movie) of gender roles and homo/bi-sexuality (which the censors would view as abhorrent, because “1935”… but the director and a few of the cast were gay, and the director was more clever than the censors so he snuck a few gems and witticisms past them). All wrapped in a pretty package.
The scene where the monster and the blind hermit forge a brief friendship were a highlight of the movie, as was that last scene… you know, the one with the bride? Big surprise to the super-smart scientists who thought they could build a lady for the monster who would then just be the monster’s property – she doesn’t even LIKE him! What?? But we MADE you for him! Nope, fuck that guy. So the monster kills everyone, the end.
Another nice bonus of this one, that opening prologue which brings in Mary Shelley, Percy Bysshe Shelley and Lord Byron, and the origins of the writing of Mary’s novel. That of a moral lesson about the consequences of a mortal man who tries to play God.
