In an age of vaccine hesitancy, the Frankenstein movies find new life

Universal’s original was released. Frankenstein The movie was released in 1931. It began with an opening warning about the potential for the film to shock and strain the nerves of the viewers. On the surface, this seems like a bit of showmanship — and smart marketing, not so different from the kind of viral “This movie made people faint!” publicity we still see in horror today. But the key feature in the prepared statement is the assumption that the audience is afraid of medical innovation — it argues that the mysteries of life and death are best left to the divine, and not in the hands of doctors or scientists. Over the past century, medical skepticism has seen many changes. But the fear that life brings to an end is not changing. FrankensteinIt is important today.

The movie’s pre-film warning clip stands hand-in-hand with the thesis of the Mary Shelley novel the movie adapts: Everyone must respect the sanctity of human life, which includes respecting the dead. It’s as much a religious warning as a scientific one; the great crime of the book’s protagonist, Victor Frankenstein, is in mocking God by trying to evolve medical techniques to create life and deny death. The anxieties that a horror story reflects have been there since its inception. Older stories often show how these fears have evolved or remain the same. First Frankenstein film, and Hammer’s adaptationFrankenstein’s Curse They are the epicenter of this kind of historical horror intrigue.

In the earliest horror movies, the focus was on the decay of the body. Pestilence was a predominant theme in silent horror films of the 1920s. The pandemic flu of late 1910s overtook them. F.W. Murnau’s 1922 classic Nosferatu Particularly interested in the spreading of disease through Max Schreck’s Count Orlok (Max Schreck), who was a carrier of the bubonic plague everywhere he went, Murnau’s 1926 film Faust There was also a common thread about the pandemic. Adaptations of Edgar Allan Poe’s Gothic tale Masque of the Red DeathIt plague plot made it commonplace in the period.

Image: Pierce Archive LLC/Buyenlarge via Getty Images

The was The Plague in Florence, Filmed in 1919 at the time of pandemic. It features a Fritz Lang screenplay. The Soviets also adapted Poe’s tale in 1923 with A Spectre Haunts Europe, Vladimir Gardin directed. In these films, the public’s proximity to death was a key concern, and figures like Orlok represented a looming sickness. It killed many millions and had an enormous impact on horror film productions.

With Frankenstein, horror stories’ anxiety about widespread sickness evolved, and autopsies became a key focal point for horror to exploit. In the shadow of the pandemic, the mingling of the living and the dead returned, but this time, with a focus on scientific intervention and investigation — and fears about both. It chilled viewers and attracted them in large numbers to witness it. Frankenstein, a movie the New York Times praised as “far and away the most effective thing of its kind. You can also see it Dracula is tame.”

In Universal’s 1931 FrankensteinThe film was directed by James Whale and heavily referenced in Marvel Cinematic Universe’s Halloween special You Werewolf at Night), Dr. Henry Frankenstein (Colin Clive) attempts to make a “perfect man” by reassembling corpses he’s acquired by robbing graves or harvesting them from the hangman’s noose. It’s implied that he learned these techniques from his former teacher, Dr. Waldman (Edward Van Sloan), who has a human brain on display for his students — which Frankenstein’s henchman Fritz (Dwight Frye) steals to complete the planned perfect man.

Frankenstein’s resulting creation is a degradation of all things human. Boris Karloff, the creature, is shown walking in a backwards motion. His flat-topped head and tightly closed mouth only hint at humanity. He’s initially meant to be terrifying, but the audience is supposed to sympathize with him, because he never asked to be created through a perversion of science and natural law. In the end, he’s chased by angry torch-wielding villagers who do not understand or care about his plight. He is an innocent caught in the wreckage of another man’s hubris.

Photo: FilmPublicityArchive/United Archives via Getty Images

And his existence is Frankenstein’s fault, for playing God ineptly with no concern about the consequences. Throughout the ’30s, this pattern of medical malfeasance returned in numerous other films, including Whale’s 1933 Universal picture The Invisible Man. Poe is back on the screen in the 1932 film Rue Morgue Murders, His story, which featured experiments that combined human and ape blood, inspired him. H.G. Wells adaptation Isle of Lost Souls, Charles Laughton portrays a mad scientist making human-animal hybrids. Rouben Mamoulian’s excellent 1931 adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson’s Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde: A Strange CaseFeatures a crazy scientist who is trying to unlock his inner darkness.

In horror films, the trope of mad-scientists became an integral part of their stories. While that trope died down amid World War II, it rose to prominence again when England’s Hammer Films brought Frankenstein back to life in 1957, now in pulsating color.

In Hammer’s Frankenstein’s Curse — the first in a seven-film series of Hammer films inspired by Shelley’s novel — Peter Cushing’s mad doctor is initially characterized as a morally righteous man, and he never wavers from that belief in himself, even after he has killed in pursuit of scientific gain. He and his fellow scientist, Paul Krempe (Robert Urquhart), don’t have the word for it yet, but they are in the beginning stages of inventing anesthesia. After experimenting with inducing comas and reviving animals, Krempe had the idea to use this technique in surgery. It will save thousands of human lives, he is right.

Baron Frankenstein, however, has different ideas. His newfound powers of resurrection are a means for him to become a godlike being, so he begins creating man. The plot is nearly identical to Universal’s original interpretation of Mary Shelley’s book, but instead of sticking to the monster’s perspective, Hammer prioritizes the scientist. Additionally, Hammer’s version is gorier and luxuriates in open wounds, bright red blood, and the decomposing brown and yellowish skin tones of the rotting creature (Christopher Lee). These textures exposed audiences to horror that shows violence in a clear way, instead of implying it.

Image: Hammer Films

Cushing was made for the Baron Frankenstein role, and he’s wonderfully evocative as a madman pushing himself beyond all moral decency. He was a great actor, and his eye skills are a crucial skill. His obsession to make a man perfect becomes increasingly irritable and cold. He’s easily believable as someone willing to commit violence for the sake of his own gain, and he has a constant forward momentum in achieving these goals, no matter the cost.

It’s ironic that Cushing was more commonly cast as the hero in Hammer productions after Frankenstein’s Curse, Christopher Lee was appointed primary heavy. Frankenstein’s Curse This suggests that the contrary would have been true. Cushing, on the other hand is cruel and uncaring as the scientist. Lee’s performance as the creator is disarmingly sympathetic. Lee’s star-making performance revolves around his confused, wounded posture, and an expression that suggests he can remember being a man, but feels trapped in the form of something else.

While the Monster is completely inhuman, it’s not entirely so. He was created by science, but there are fragments in his psyche of the man he used to be — memories, perhaps. He hesitates before killing, just as Karloff’s version of the character did. But unlike Karloff’s creature, Lee’s is brought back to life numerous times in the same film, and he’s a little more deranged and less in touch with his humanity with each intervention. He’s both innocent and not when he begins to kill villagers in a confused state of misunderstanding.

Frankenstein This has been a classic that endures through many generations. It is timely and engaging because it deals with all the medical horror. Both Colin Clive and Peter Cushing’s interpretation of the character insist on dabbling with forces they don’t fully understand, and in the process, they represent every fear about the power doctors have over the human body.

Patients place a great deal of trust in their doctors, especially when they have to go under the knife or treat an illness. These two characters break that trust by creating something that actively harms their community and other people’s lives. These films also present bodies at a remove from life: There’s a poetic contradiction in the way they use images of the dead, such as Karloff’s dangling, lifeless limbs on the slab, to intertwine the colliding states of life and death in one body. This monster can be described as a living autopsy. He is an alarming symbol of medical malpractice.

In the Hammer films, it’s particularly notable how Cushing’s character is prioritized over Lee’s. Cushing’s interpretation of Frankenstein is ominous because he actively manipulates the unconscious fears most of us have about bodily mutilation, or entirely trusting our bodies in someone else’s hands. Cushing’s scientist has little care for the life and the personality attached to the body. He sees people as a tool to disassemble and assemble according to his will. He breezes past any of the notions of humanity that are vital in the medical field, and looks at people’s physical forms in a mathematical, intellectual capacity. In his schemes, there’s no room for the soul.

Despite its graphic quality, Curse of Frankenstein, and the single-mindedness of Cushing’s character, these mad scientists of old operate in a philosophical gray area. Because all medical advances and new treatments seem possible at first glance, their innovation is admirable. Cushing’s character even argues for his work to be seen in this context, pleading with his potential executioners, “Look what I’ve done. Look what I’ve accomplished!”

Warner Bros., via Getty Images

Since the beginning of the 20th century, medical science has undergone a significant transformation. Frankenstein films. Medical catastrophes are now often associated more with zombies. FrankensteinIt can be a great lesson for us.. Although we’ve moved on with times, the unease and discomfort around doctors still persists. It is natural to be concerned about the results of a medical exam and whether or not a doctor has an ulterior motive. Surveys show that many people don’t go to the doctor, even when necessary. They can be motivated by convenience, cost, or general anxiety about illness. But sometimes, as these horror films suggest, it’s a matter of trust. It’s obvious enough that vaccine hesitancy is a sign of this.

The medical field can be seen as a moral and social benefit, but there are historical precedents for these fears. Real fears are still reflected in the paranoid fantasies about mad scientists unleashing havoc. Some groups have lost trust long ago. Take the Tuskegee experiments with Black patients. Or the fraught history medical gatekeeping and sabotage involving transgender women in America.

Although fears about medical power abuse are legitimate and historical, they must be respected. In extreme cases they may lead to paranoid distrust of the medical community. There were many questions about the approval of the COVID-19 vaccination in record time. The vaccine has saved thousands of lives. A large percentage of Americans still refuse to be vaccinated out of fear for the medical profession. Frankenstein and its various screen adaptations represent the apex of this anxiety — the fear that scientists are cold and unfeeling, willing to cavalierly play with people’s lives.

The line between innovation and tragedy is a thin one, and it’s a long road. We have come to accept medical processes like blood withdrawal and testing, and we’ve given up on leeches as a treatment. It is now common to use anesthesia. Doctors no longer need to give their patients either opium or a glass of whiskey prior incisions. However, the human race continues to question medical innovation and slow down. We are a fact-driven species, but we’re driven by our fears as well.

Sometimes we are not different from the general public. Frankenstein, Some are concerned that the doctor may be a boogeyman who wields a scalpel. He is about to cause atrocities in a cemetery full of corpses. It’s worth questioning where that fear comes from. The torches are still burning, so it’s important to reconsider the moral base of the runners and the pursuit. It’s what the Frankenstein Films have asked their audiences questions for centuries, and this seems to be more pertinent than ever.

The 1931 FrankensteinStreaming is available PeacockAnd the Criterion ChannelIt is also free and comes with advertising support Tubi. It’s available for rental or purchase at Amazon, VuduOther digital platforms. 1957’s Curse of FrankensteinStreaming is available HBO MaxAlso available: Amazon Vudu.