Unlisted: The Woman in Black

Posted on March 19, 2012 by jaycluitt

Technically, Daniel Radcliffe is an adult. He’s 22 years old, so it’s possible he could have a young child and a wife who died in childbirth, and I suppose in the past these things happened younger, and of course he wants to distance himself from a certain well known child role, but with his boyish face and general lack of sufficient acting ability (though there’s no doubting it’s improvement since the early years of Potter) you’d think he’d pick a role that required a little less heavy living as the bereaved lawyer struggling to make ends meet in this picture from Hammer. But as it is, Radcliffe has unfortunately picked a part he simply isn’t right for. His face is too well known against a cast of whose are only vaguely familiar. It’s a role better suited to the likes of Rafe Spall, Armie Hammer or Jim Sturgess, who have already landed but haven’t yet rocketed to megastardom. One understands Radcliffe’s motivation, and indeed his name carries the film, but it’s clear he wasn’t cast for his skill as an actor or appropriateness for the character.

I’d heard tell from a horror aficionado that the film was scary. This is true, in the same sense that a jack-in-the-box is scary. If your idea of terror stems from a clearly signposted jump scare (every time the cat appears in Alien, for example) then this movie will chill you to the bone, but other than a couple of mildly inventive scares there’s not a lot here to send your popcorn skyward. This doesn’t mean it’s advisable to take young kids to though, for although it is a 12A, some of the themes are not suitable for bringing your 6 year old son and his two friends to see, especially if you’re going to sit in the seats directly in front of me and the little sods are going to insist on turning round and staring at me for the final hour of the film. Selfish father in Salisbury last Wednesday, I’m talking to you. Also, the two mad old woman behind me to the right, please shut the hell up in future, I can see and hear the film, so do not need everything explained loudly, and guys sitting along my row, sit the fuck still, all these chairs are joined together. Dick. Seriously, there weren’t that many people in the cinema, how come I was surrounded?

Anyway, the film. Radcliffe plays small time lawyer with poor emoting abilities Arthur Kipps, who visits a remote village to sort out some legal documents for a house. The villagers are less than happy to have an outsider visiting, and are rather keen to send him on his way, for they’re understandably concerned that every time Kipps visits the house, separated from the mainland by a long path that’s underwater when the tide comes in (you reckon he’s going to get trapped out there at some point?), someone’s kid dies in horrific or violent circumstances. What’s stranger here though, and what doesn’t make sense at the end of the film, is why the villagers don’t explain to Kipps what is going on. Had they told him he’s inadvertently causing it and how, chances are he might stop. Other than this glaring oversight, there were a couple of other issues I had with the film. Firstly, at one point Arthur willingly goes swimming around in mud deeper than he is. Before doing this, any sensible person would at least remove their waistcoat, tie and shoes, not needlessly jump in dressed for a formal dinner party. Secondly, about half way through the film part of the game is given away purely by stylistic choices as to the nature of what is causing the travesties is shown to us but not to Kipps, and will clearly not be a threat towards him until somewhere near the end of the third act. At this point I nearly stood up brushed my hands off and walked out with a “Right, that’s that sorted then” motion.

Not to say it’s a bad film, it’s just thoroughly underwhelming and predictable. Other than a few sequences – the candles in the hallway and a nice moment with a reflection in the window – and a wonderful supporting role for the ever-underused Ciaran Hinds, there’s nothing here I’ll remember for long.

Choose life 5/10

Hairspray

Posted on February 29, 2012 by jaycluitt

No, not John Travolta in a fat suit, a sight so diabolical not even Christopher Walken can save it, but the 1988 John Waters original, in which real life transvestite Divine, a Waters regular, plays severely overweight Edna Turnblad, mother of also rotund Tracey, who watches and dances along to the Corny Collins show every day on TV. Tracey is jealous of the more attractive (as in slimmer) dancers picked to perform on the show, especially bitch council member Amber, who dissolves into a flap-handed tizzy when she discovers a pimple. When Tracey is sent to a special class at school because her hair is too high (seriously) she learns how to dance with the segregated black kids that have been banned from the show except for one day a month for Negro Day. The film is intolerably cheesy and often stupid (using a psychiatrist to make a white girl not love a black boy), and does not help the racial stereotyping it tries to prevent, with one black woman talking only in rhymes.

Choose life 5/10

Bunuel Marathon

Posted on February 29, 2012 by jaycluitt

I’ve made no secret that I dislike the films of Spanish surrealist/Mexican politicist Luis Bunuel. I find his work arduous, unpleasantly illogical and disconcerting, so I thought it would be a good idea to remove the remainder from the list in quick succession, allowing for 8 films to be bundled together in another overlong post that no-one with a modicum of sense will ever read.

Our first is Belle de Jour, a senseless, semi-plotless effort typical of Bunuel, following Severine (the beautiful Catherine Deneuve) who behaves frigidly towards her husband of one year, but finds herself stepping out to work at a brothel without his knowing. What little plot there is is predictable – inevitably a lecherous friend of Severine’s husband visits the brothel and propositions her, with only Deneuve’s performance is worth watching. Mercifully, little intercourse is shown.

In the Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie, I was shocked to find an almost coherent story running throughout, as six upper crust respectable people – drug dealers, no less – struggle to all come together for a meal, but are denied the chance at every turn, be it from confused calendars, a dead restaurant manager, a bout of pre-lunch nooky, a shortage of tea and the unexpected arrival of a branch of the military. There is indeed a certain charm to the story, nicely balancing the ludicrous dining catastrophes with the concern that the drug pedallers are being tracked by terrorists, but alas all this is blown to bits with interruptions from a tragic Lieutenant, telling of how his mother’s ghost told him as a child to poison his father, or a dream he had meeting dead people on a street. The bishop is also an unnecessary distraction, and the Inception-like dream within a dream finale adds nothing but disappointment.

It’s Catherine Deneuve again, this time playing Tristana, a woman in mourning for her recently deceased mother, who goes to stay with the lecherous yet refined Don Lupe. He spouts bizarre philosophies (“a woman only stays honest with a broken leg – and at home!”) which begin to rub off on Tristana as he makes several advances towards her yet she does not seem to object. She makes a point of always choosing between two things, so it’s safe to assume she will eventually be called upon to choose between two men, and she suffers from the kinds of bizarre, unexplained dreams that are Bunuel’s bread and butter. There’s a fair stab at an actual plot, but bland or irrational characters, large periods of time passing with little acknowledgement and an unsatisfactory, inconclusive ending mars the film.

After an unexpected yet poorly edited explosive opening that had to be rewound to work out who it happened to, That Obscure Object of Desire heads downhill. Using an annoying and repeatedly referred to narrative device of a man telling his story to other passengers in his train carriage, we hear of the events that led up to him pouring water over a woman on the train platform. The other passengers continually tell the man that his story is fascinating and remarkable, but it is nothing of the sort, concerning a duplicitous young women employed as a maid by the man, who leaves when he shows her affection, and bear in mind that the positive adjectives used to compliment the man’s story were written by the same person who wrote the story he is telling, making them nothing more than egotistical propaganda.

Los Olvidados began positively, but I’m sure not in a way hoped by those involved in its production. Expecting a 95 minute film, the DVD clocked in at a much more tolerable 76 minutes, so I settled down with a grin on my face at the extra 19 minutes I could spend asleep that evening. Having just escaped from prison, young gang leader Jaibo rejoins a band of youths and sets them up to rob a blind busker. The plan fails and one of their number is stabbed, so later the gang pelt the busker with mud and stones, destroying his instruments. All the gang members look at least a little alike and are hard to distinguish from one another, and there are few genuinely likeable characters in the cast. One young hoodlum steals food from his own mother, but to be fair, when asked if she loves him, the mother replies “Why should I love him? I don’t even know who his father is.” The film shows a mildly interesting look at those trying to escape a life they’ve been born into, but not a lot happens, and when it does it isn’t terribly interesting.

Inconclusive and pointless, Viridiana sees a nun visiting her sick uncle, only to find she is eerily identical to her deceased aunt. Her uncle, Don Jaime, is willing to do anything to prevent Viridiana from returning to the nunnery, though drugging her and pretending to rape her is a little extreme, as is hanging himself when his plan fails. Believing herself to be deflowered and therefore unable to return to her calling, Viridiana brings in some homeless people to help out around her late uncle’s house – much to the chagrin of her uncle’s other relatives – and the previously homeless do a less than acceptable job of helping out. Long periods of silence make it easy to drift off, as does the boring story with little to retain interest.

To begin with in Land Without Bread, I thought the worst part of this half hour documentary about an obscure poverty-stricken Spanish village in 1932 was going to be the production values, with a poor quality transfer resplendent with cracks and scratches, terrible sound and mistakes in the subtitles, bit it turns out I was quite wrong. The film is horrific in its depiction of a town where the only water source is a muddy stream running through it, children’s parents steal the bread their offspring bring home from the school and almost everyone is diseased in some way – a 32 years old woman looks at least 55, with a revoltingly bulbous goitre on her neck. We see a child with inflamed gums, and two days later she is dead. The only milk available is from the goats that thrive on the barren, rocky landscape, and is reserved only for the very sick, and goats are only used for their meat when they die of natural causes. At this point the film takes a turn. We see a goat fall from the rocks to demonstrate the previous point, and also a donkey being stung to death when a bee hive it is carrying falls off. After watching the film, I later discovered both events, each ending in the very real death of an animal, were both staged, with Bunuel even smearing the donkey with honey. Words fail me for home disgusting this is. A group of dwarfs are filmed as though the focus of a nature documentary (“Some are dangerous. They flee from people or attack them with stones. They are found at nightfall as they return to their village. We found it very hard to film them.”) There are repeated shots of a dead baby. This is a thoroughly depressing film that does not broach the subject of why the village’s inhabitants remain there, and it’s only redeeming feature is making the viewer grateful for what they have.

And finally, The Young One. Racism runs rampantly throughout this tale of a black man fleeing the accused rape of a white woman, and discovering an island inhabited only by a young girl and her abusive guardian. It’s a fairly straightforward plot, with the accused criminal attempting to leave the island, but there are bizarre and inappropriate sexual overtones between the girl and both men, especially because she is clearly underage, though no-one, not even the girl herself, knows how old she is. There isn’t as much wrong with this film as in most of Bunuel’s, but also nothing really noteworthy.

Belle de Jour: Choose life 5/10
The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie: Choose life 6/10
Tristana: Choose life 4/10
That Obscure Object of Desire: Choose life 3/10
Los Olvidados: Choose life 5/10
Viridiana: Choose life 4/10
Land Without Bread: Choose life 1/10
The Young One: Choose life 6/10

Disney Weekend

Posted on February 28, 2012 by jaycluitt

I needed to (and to be fair, still do) catch up on my film watching and post writing, so the opportunity to watch several short films that could all be written up in one post was something that needed to be implemented (and will soon be repeated with an upcoming Luis Bunuel collective post, watch this space). So what better way to do this than with an entire weekend devoted to the Mouse House and it’s timeless catalogue of classics? After a quick LoveFilm reshuffle, some DVD borrows and a root through my parents VHS collection the scene was set.

As was the recent Star Wars marathon, progress was made chronologically, so let me begin by taking you back to 1937, when an evil queen kept her beautiful step daughter locked up and dressed in rags, forced to work cleaning the castle, with singing to birds her only enjoyment. When Snow White’s beauty begins to surpass that of her stepmother, the evil queen orders a huntsman to lead the young housemaid into the woods to kill her, but he cannot and she flees instead. Her journey through the woods is terrifying – floating logs become crocodiles, trees grow hands and grab at her (but stop short of Evil Dead-style harassment, this is a kids film after all), but fortunately she finds an abandoned house in the woods and ploughs straight in with half the woodland in tow. A message that should have been made clear in this film, but was bizarrely omitted, is hat wild animals should not be used to aid cleaning, and especially not in serving food. Licking a late clean is an expression uncle Walt took all too literally, and I highly doubt the tails used to dry the crockery and measure ingredients were ever sanitised.

Imagine, if you will, that you’ve been at work all day with your six diminutive brothers. The disreputable state of your house when you left it that morning shows that cleanliness has never been high on your list of priorities, and the lack of a dog bowl shows that animals have no place under your roof, yet when you arrive home you discover an undeniable case of breaking and entering – the culprit is still asleep in 3 of your beds after all – and I’m guessing an at least light scattering of feathers, fur and footprints everywhere you look. If your reaction is celebration rather than immediate calls to the police and pest control, chances are you randomly break into song on a daily basis. Typically for an early Disney film, the plot is non-sensical and wafer thin (so the evil Queen is also a witch who can transform her appearance – why not either make herself more beautiful or Snow White ugly?) and the songs – other than the timeless Hi Ho Hi Ho – are forgettable and saccharine. Often scenes are entirely superfluous – Snow dances with the dwarfs for a straight 5 minutes – and, whilst notable for being the first feature length animation, many better films along similar lines have now eclipsed it.

One such eclipser is Pinocchio, raising the bar in both quality and insanity stakes, as lonely toy maker Geppetto wishes on a star that his latest puppet were a real boy. Of course this happens, and a cricket is made his conscience, (because why not?) and the next day an overjoyed Geppetto sends his new son off to school, presumably to have the sap kicked out of him for being made of pine, threatened with matches, woodpeckers, beavers, or just a good old fashioned junior hacksaw. Arguably saved from this fate, Pinocchio is instead befriended by a couple of talent scouts, who are probably evil because in a film where almost all of the characters are people, these two are a talking fox and cat, wearing hats and smoking cigars. Their boss puts Pinocchio on stage – neglecting the idea that talking animals would prove just as lucrative – and sets him up for more episodic adventures, as Pinocchio learns valuable lessons about not smoking and drinking – they’ll turn you into a donkey – and it’s OK to be eaten by a whale. It’s a testament to Walt’s creativity that Pinocchio’s nose growing whenever he tells a lie is such a small part of the story, yet is the most quoted and parodied aspect, with everything else – all equally ludicrous – being all but forgotten.

The only film appearing here that I hadn’t seen before in Fantasia, though I knew of clips like Mickey cleaning up with magical mops and hippos dancing with crocodiles. It turns out that the reason I’d heard of those two segments and no others is that they are the only ones worth mentioning amongst the 8 extended animated shorts – each set to music played by the Philadelphia Orchestra. The first 7 ½ minutes are wasted on the arrival, tuning and introduction of the various orchestra sections and an introductory speech from the conductor, and more time is wasted in between each song by going back to him to set up the next section. At one point, he ridiculously introduces the soundtrack as a character, showing different instruments causing a line to wiggle differently as though part of a basic music lesson, and do we really need to see the orchestra leaving for a break half way through, then setting their instruments up again upon their return?

As for the shorts, most are tedious and pointless, neither improving nor complementing the music backing them. At one point my hopes were unforgivably raised with the promise of a dinosaur-filled segment, only for the dinos to only appear briefly and not do a great deal whilst on screen. With too much time dallied on single-celled organisms and ambiguous evolution. We also see what appear to be very young centaurettes dolling themselves up, with the help of some naked infant fairies, for a bout of hanky-panky with a gang of much older looking centaurs, the moral to be taken from which is only date someone the same colour as you. I can only recommend the aforementioned Mickey Mouse caper the Sorcerer’s Apprentice and the animal ballet Dance of the Hours, with ostriches, hippos, elephants and crocodiles set to La Gioconda, though I think the elephants should have been replaced with something smaller, like monkeys for instance, to offer a greater level of contrast between themselves and the similarly rotund hippos. 1001 comments that the films contains a good hour and a bad hour – a generous statement in my opinion – which makes me wonder why it was included, and not bumped for the more iconic and prolific Steamboat Willie.

Back to the more traditional Disney – talking animals larking about, learning life lessons and suffering horrific tragedies. Ask someone what they remember about Bambi and just like Pinocchio they’ll all respond in one way, his mother getting shot. Maybe they’ll say they cried, seeing it for the first time as a young child, or how it traumatised them for life. This is nonsense, for nothing is shown, his mother is there one moment, you hear a shot, and then she isn’t. Any traumatising was more likely done by the parents in a presumably well-meaning but poorly handled attempt at an explanation that Bambi’s mum has headed to the big meadow in the sky, or perhaps mounted above a fireplace. The knowledge that the mother will die – shot in a meadow by a hunter – is common information, yet mars every visit to the meadow before it with a layer of apprehension for the viewer, for there is little else in the film even close to depth. The lead is cute but empty, the life lessons – forming friendships, meeting a girl, accepting responsibility, growing up – are all trite, and other than a seamless transition from falling raindrops to the song April Showers one wonders whether the film would still be discussed if the mother had survived.

Disney began to develop their winning formula with 101 Dalmatians. What was needed you see was cute protagonists, lovable yet clumsy sidekicks, lessons to be learned on a great adventure, a cracking soundtrack and an iconic villain. All had been seen at least in part across the previous films, and here not all are present – there are no real life lessons and only one song, but one that remains to this day to be a particular favourite from the Disney canon; the catchy yet effortlessly simple Cruella DeVille, also one of the greatest and most memorable bad guys in cinematic history. The plot involves a batch of Dalmatian puppies (I forget how many) DeVille wishes to make a coat from, and though the first half has its moments – dog and owner pacing frantically outside the room the female dog is giving birth in, women outside of a window all bearing a strong resemblance to their dogs – it is the action-packed second half that is the key to this film, possibly the only children’s movie to feature the line “the blacker the better,” a quote I doubt Uncle Walt approved of.

And now we’re on to our first true classic, as young man-cub Mowgli is raised by a pack of wolves in the jungles of India, but is cast out when a tiger threatens his life in this retelling of Rudyard Kipling’s the Jungle Book. The cast of characters is creative and varied, from the hypnotic snake Kaa, sensible panther Bagheera, partying bear Baloo, human mimicking orang-utan King Louie, militaristic elephant herd and of course the menacing, fearsome tiger Sheer Kahn, a clear inspiration for Alan Rickman in Die Hard. The songs are wonderful, particularly Bare Necessities and I Wanna Be Like You, and the animation is spectacular. Other than the inexplicably Liverpublian vultures and the fact that Kaa sounds exactly the same as Winnie the Pooh (both are voiced by Sterling Holloway), the film is flawless, and carries an important message – females are devious.

So how do you improve on the Jungle Book? What was the missing ingredient? Dancing cutlery of course, in what else but Beauty and the Beast. It’s easy to forget just how wonderful this film is, even for an adult male such as myself. Featuring the most recommended female role model in a Disney film (other than perhaps Tiana from the Princess and the Frog, but that wasn’t a very good film) as Belle, a non-princess brunette inventor’s daughter, has inspirations of her own that do not involve a loveless marriage to a handsome yet rude and oafish brute, but she is extraordinarily beautiful, but considered strange by the rest of the village as she always has her nose in a book. When her father is captured by a hideously deformed beast (ooooh, now I get the title), Belle offers to take his place if her father is released. Of course Belle and the beast fall in love (after he gives her a goddamned library he already frickin’ had), but aside from the traditional plot (Remade from 1946’s La Belle et la Bete) the songs are far better than I’m willing to admit without being castrated, and are still stuck in my head more than a month after watching the film, not that I’m complaining. Undoubtedly the character who makes the biggest impact is the Bruce Campbell-chinned, Conan physiqued town meatball Gaston, a complete bastard willing to have Belle’s father committed if it means she will marry him, and who’s only redeemable feature is his brilliant rabble-rousing song (“I’m especially good at expectorating”).

And finally, my personal favourite, and my earliest memory of going to the cinema, The Lion King, or Hamlet for kids. Undoubtedly the greatest soundtrack of any Disney film, and easily among the best of other movies too, composed by Elton John and Tim Rice and featuring classics like I Just Can’t Wait To Be King, Circle Of Life, Be Prepared, Can You Feel The Love Tonight and of course Hakuna Matata (we don’t talk about Rowan Atkinson singing the Morning Report through his nose). The cast is stellar, including Jeremy Irons, Matthew Broderick, Nathan Lane, Whoopi Goldberg and James Earl Jones, and the story is terrific fun, yet still deals with the hardship of losing a parent, as lion cub Simba flees his family after believing he killed his father Mufasa. The scenery is stunning, taking in the African plains, lush jungle and elephant graveyard, and the script is full of humour, laden with lion puns (“a matter of pride,” “the mane event”).

Well that didn’t really work, did it? This was supposed to take less time than writing 8 individual posts. Ah well. I’ve got to say I wouldn’t recommend watching this many Disney films in such a short amount of time. Since watching them all, I’m taken by surprise when a passing animal refuses to have a conversation with me, or when my neighbours fail to spontaneously break into song.

Snow White: Choose life 5/10

Pinocchio: Choose life 6/10

Fantasia: Choose life 3/10

Bambi: Choose life 5/10

101 Dalmatians: Choose film 7/10

The Jungle Book: Choose film 8/10

Beauty and the Beast: Choose film 9/10

The Lion King: Choose film 9/10

Report

Posted on February 27, 2012 by jaycluitt

On November 22^nd 1963 President John F. Kennedy was shot in his motorcade in Texas. American artist Bruce Conner was amongst those watching, and recorded footage of Kennedy being driven past, playing audio footage recorded from the radio on the day, announcing the information as it takes place, before Kennedy is pronounced dead. We see footage of the man’s legacy and his funeral, as well as some fairly tactless but thought provoking images of a bullet being fired through a lightbulb and a bubble being burst with a pin, as well as random footage from Frankenstein. This starts up showing an important historic event that everyone should be witness to, but the headache inducing flashing white screen detracts from the audio, and I’d have preferred more coverage of the aftermath instead of the more artistic approach taken here.

Choose life 5/10

I Walked with a Zombie

Posted on February 12, 2012 by jaycluitt

Have you ever been really disappointed by the title of a film? I’m talking about films like Monster’s Ball, Elephant and Free Willy, films that, when you hear the name without knowing the plot, your mind heads off in completely the wrong direction. I was very disappointed when I found out the Tyrannosaur from the title of Paddy Considine’s recent film was an abusive drunk rather than a giant carnivorous lizard rampaging around a London estate. And so it is with I Walked with a Zombie, less a heart-pulling romance of a woman falling for the reanimated corpse of the man she loved, more a nurse caring for a patient who cannot feel, talk or think, but obeys simple commands and can walk around. Continue reading →

Five Easy Pieces

Posted on January 28, 2012 by jaycluitt

Jack Nicholson is Bobby, a talented pianist who gave up his life of potential greatness to slum it on an oil rig, with a waitress girlfriend and spending his time bowling and gambling with his buddies. The movie is comprised of several great scenes – Bobby playing the piano on the back of a moving truck, trying to order French toast from a difficult waitress (“I want you to hold it between your knees”) and being ‘recognised’ by two girls at a bowling, only to be accused of being bald, but everything between these scenes is forgettable and bland, with only Nicholson’s performance – his reaction at the bowling alley is priceless – being worth paying attention to.

Choose life 5/10

Boudu Saved From Drowning

Posted on January 22, 2012 by jaycluitt

A kindly, respectable yet adulterous bookshop owner sees a homeless man jump from a bridge and rushes to his aid, jumping into the river fully clothed to save him (though many other younger and less plump people are on the scene before he is) and subsequently takes the tramp in, giving him clothing, food and a bed for the night. This kicks off an unusual love square between the tramp, the bookshop owner, his wife and their maid, with the ruse and uncouth hobo causing disruption in the lives of those around him. Michel Simon is perfect as Boudu, but the plot is derailed by lottery-pivoted hokum and a scene where Boudu insults, frightens and possibly rapes the bookshop owner’s wife is glossed over, though she does seem to enjoy it.

Choose life 5/10

Henry V

Posted on January 11, 2012 by jaycluitt

Before going in I thought I’d be completely lost in this, having not seen Henry I-IV, but I think the films must be standalone stories or something. This adaptation of Shakespeare’s royal epic (which I haven’t read, yet, and am not overly inspired to do so now) stars, and was directed by, Sir Lawrence Olivier, and uses the novel concept of being set on a stage at the Globe, complete with a heckling audience and backstage costume changes. Whilst certainly an interesting idea, this distances us from the film, in the same way as a laugh track would from a terrible sitcom, constantly reminding you that you’re watching a film. The conceit is wisely dropped for the central acts, freeing up the action for larger sets, sweeping camera movement, horses and battles. The rousing speeches are highlights, but the whole affair is dry and slow.

Choose life 5/10

Frankenstein/Bride of Frankenstein

Posted on January 8, 2012 by jaycluitt

Although at times laughable now, back in 1931 James Whale’s adaptation of Mary Shelley’s classic horror may well have been truly terrifying. Everybody knows the story; a mad scientist and his hunchbacked assistant rob some graves and, with the aid of a handy lightning bolt, create life in a giant, shambling monster, who eventually escapes his castle prison and is hunted down by a screaming mob with pitchforks and torches. This sense of inevitability is what lets the film down, and the limited effects available 70 years ago makes the film pale in comparison to however you can picture it in your imagination. Boris Karloff (replaced with a large ‘?’ in the opening credits for maximum levels of mystery) is brilliant as the monster, displaying childlike innocence in a giant, rigid, wordless performance that sees him throwing a young girl into a river to see if she’ll float, yet remains the victim in this tale.

The sequel picks up at the exact end of the first film, but is not encumbered by knowledge of the plot, or at least not for me, as all I knew was that at some point a female monster was created with a big black Marge Simpson hairdo with a white streak through it. The film uses a nice reminding device – the story is being told by original author Mary Shelley to her husband ad Lord Byron – which although takes you out of the film, adequately reminds of the climax of the previous picture. There are some cringe worthy scenes, most notably a blind man teaching the monster how to speak reminiscent of the worst scene of Terminator 2, with John Connor teaching Arnie how to be cool. The bizarre scene where Dr. Frankenstein’s former mentor Dr. Pretorius reveals the miniature people he has created in jars, including a king, a queen and a mermaid, is just insane, and Pretorius himself is a perfect combination of Doc Brown and Grand Moff Tarkin.

Frankenstein: Choose life 5/10

Bride of Frankenstein: Choose life 4/10