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I agree. Not the film's finest moment. I would almost wonder if that was done post-production because someone felt like the movie needed another kill-scene. It was pretty unnecessary. And yet, it does add a little bit of an "anyone who knows is a walking dead-person" element.

That's my other problem with it, though: if anything, it makes the investigation into the explosion MORE suspicious.
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That's my other problem with it, though: if anything, it makes the investigation into the explosion MORE suspicious.
Maybe so. But I got the sense Cochran didn't care what happened once the whole plan went off. Look, I'm not saying it's narratively perfect, more that I never liked that scene until I just played Devil's Advocate with you and now I think it's maybe not so bad.



Victim of The Night

Halloween (1978)

I don't have an essay for this one as I watched it with a friend and couldn't take any notes. *ignores sigh of relief from anyone still reading thread*
I had the opportunity to show this to a friend of mine who has either never seen it or just hasn't seen it in over 30 years and remembered almost nothing about it.
He is not the kind of guy who is used to watching low-budget filmmaking or a lot of genre films from before the 1980s so he nitpicked quite a bit. He took umbrage with the acting in the first act (which he's not wrong about but whatever) and he was determined to declare the film a "Morality Play" which I will leave to anyone else as I have feelings about the alleged Morality Play of Slashers which I would not be able to express with brevity.
Still, I think he liked it and I was reminded again why this was such a hit and why Carpenter was special.
Still, I think, probably, that The Fog has overtaken it as my favorite.



Victim of The Night

This remains one of my favorite Horror-Comedies of all-time and I know I've seen it cited as such by a number of genre filmmakers.
I was disappointed to learn that Abbott and Costello hated the idea with Lous Costello being particularly difficult about it and having to be coaxed with money to agree to do it, saying that his five year-old could write a better script (kind of a bummer to learn that Lou Costello was a dick). Additionally, Boris Karloff, who naturally refused to have anything to do with the picture, did agree, for money, to appear at the London premier of the film as a promotional gimmick, under the stipulation of "As long as I don't actually have to SEE the picture."
Funny how wrong everyone was as this is, without question, the most enduring film in their entire catalogue.
I was also amused to read that, by all accounts, Lugosi, Chaney, and Strange were charming and professional throughout the shoot... despite A&C misbehaving the entire time, with the former Assistant Head of Production referring to Bud and Lou as "the real monsters".
Lugosi himself said he felt the script was consistent with the dignity of the Dracula character and Strange saying it was one of his favorite shoots of his career.


I was a little saddened to learn that, in retrospect, Lon Chaney Jr. really disliked the film saying that it made buffoons of the classic monsters and ended that era (and probably his career). This is, of course, completely ridiculous. The Universal Monster franchise was flagging by the time of Frankenstein Meets The Wolfman and once you get through House of Frankenstein and House Of Dracula, there's not much left to salvage of Chaney's career, he's just playing The Wolfman over and over.
If anything, I concur with Lugosi, I thought all three of the monsters here were treated as actual Horror elements and, while I admit that watching Lugosi throw a plant at Chaney's Wolfman was kind of a funny way for two arch-monsters to do battle, I thought the whole idea of The Wolfman trying to stop Lugosi's Dracula from reanimating The Monster to be his slave was a nice story (even if we've seen it with Carradine).
I would further comment that I thought it was a pretty nice-looking production once you get to the castle with caves and dungeons and rotating walls and such. And overall, it seemed pretty professional except for some of A&C's obvious ad-libbing.
All in all, this is a Halloween must for me, I watch it pretty much every year now and I find it a lot of fun.



I was a little saddened to learn that, in retrospect, Lon Chaney Jr. really disliked the film saying that it made buffoons of the classic monsters and ended that era (and probably his career). This is, of course, completely ridiculous. The Universal Monster franchise was flagging by the time of Frankenstein Meets The Wolfman and once you get through House of Frankenstein and House Of Dracula, there's not much left to salvage of Chaney's career, he's just playing The Wolfman over and over.
Yeah, the buffoonery had already started, Lon.




Victim of The Night


“We wouldn’t wanna wake you mother now would we, Charlie? Then I’d have to kill her too.”

Fright Night

Long my probable favorite vampire movie, I don't think there's a lot of question about it now.
What is interesting though is how it all came together for me this time, how I feel like I really saw how good the movie was in every facet that it succeeded. Removed enough from the nostalgic love of it I found myself appreciating the craft of it, and that's not just like the lighting, or the acting, I also mean the story. It's a very good story.
What this film really is, I realize, is an answer to the notion that the vampire was too old-fashioned in 1985. There is a Peter Vincent, Vampire Hunter quip about how he's lost his job because young people don't think the supernatural is scary anymore and all they wanna see is a maniac running around chopping peoples' heads off. Which is not necessarily wrong in the post-Halloween, Friday the 13th Part V environment of 1985. But this movie goes long on script and direction to challenge the notion, it just happens to also be exciting and a bit grisly while it's at it.


What do I mean about the script and direction? Well, it's not just the overarching narrative or clever dialogue, both of which the film has. It's the details. Details, details.
The Peter Vincent movie on the TV references the “children of the night” line from Dracula, and the two characters are named Jonathan and Mina, perhaps too cute, but all of that happens off-screen before we see the TV so if you're not really listening you'd never catch it. Jerry is carrying his end of the coffin with just one hand, which is a nice touch. TV broadcast in the background about a man found murdered seems obvious in a movie from this time but these days they’d skip right over that for an action scene. And, this may sound stupid but, I swear, the prostitute that comes to Jerry’s house early on, she’s obviously beautiful but there’s something sweet about her and the way she smiles at Charlie that makes her death matter. When they show her face on the TV, she looks like a sweet little girl. And there's little pauses, like when it's pretty obvious that the thrall, Billy Cole, sees the problem with Charlie immediately. This establishes how smart and practiced they are at what they're doing. The movie pauses for like a second to show the realization on his face. And Jerry is whistling "Strangers In The Night" as he walks into Charlie's room and grins just slightly at the humor in it.
My point, really, is that it just doesn't feel like they make movies like this anymore, where the focus is as much on setting up a good story and having good dialogue and character scenes, rather than just expository dialogue leading to the next set-piece.
The movie is not without issues, I guess the one idea that doesn’t really work is that after Jerry has already openly declared himself a vampire to Charlie, even showing him his more savage form, what is the point of the whole part supposedly changing his mind?

Finally, god, Sarandon is great in this. The way he so smoothly changes his expression when Charlie sees him, it’s really impressive. And he gets better and better in every scene. He's such a charismatic actor and surprisingly subtle. Why was he not bigger?


All month long I kept wanting to watch this and then telling myself to save it for later, save it for later until it was suddenly very much in the running for Halloween Night. Then I decided that Halloween Night would end up being a toss-up between Fright Night and Vampire Circus, followed by Rocky Horror. Fright Night won. I missed Vampire Circus, I really do enjoy that movie. But I'm not sad it ended like this.



Victim of The Night


“It’s not easy having a good time. Even smiling makes my face ache.”

The Rocky Horror Picture Show


I am reminded what it was like to see this as a 12 year old in 1984 or ‘85, though I suspect the reaction wasn’t much different for 22 or 32 year-olds in 1975. The first 30 minutes of the movie (which is not nearly the whole first act) was like a sledgehammer to the forehead.


When the doors burst open on the Transylvanians at the start of the first chorus... we had never seen anything like it, not remotely, except maybe in vivid imaginings after listening to so much Bowie and watching so much Hammer and just starting to like things to be SEXY. It was so overwhelming that many people of my time consider the whole movie to be that first 30 minutes and after that it drags and isn’t really worth watching. Which, of course is pernicious nonsense.


30 minutes is actually when the movie starts to get weird by its own standards. It’s not weird, within its own world, despite how utterly weird it was when I was young, til you get to The Lab.


Then you get really what most second acts are like (except totally crazy). And then The Floor Show starts and the best and weirdest (and saddest) part of the whole film occurs.




When I saw this in ’85, I was transformed.
I mean, this movie was so transgressive at its time, I can’t really express it. The only thing like it around that time was maybe Videodrome, which I saw shortly after I saw this. To have this Frankenstein villain cast off its cape to reveal a fully owning-shit alien transvestite… just way more than anyone could really process at 12 years old or probably at any age in 1975.


Another thing is that the look was so strange. When the elevator arrives in the lab back then you were like, “What the hell?!” The only thing I can really think of is there are so moments from A Clockwork Orange that are a bit like this movie. And I also love all the fourth-wall breaking that occurs frequently throughout the film. How do they get away with that? It makes it feel like you’re there observing all of it and these crazy people are letting you.

So yeah, this movie was a total transformation of my life. And it still gives me tremendous joy every time. I've seen it well over 20 times, maybe over 30, and it's still as fun and world-shaking for me as it ever was. That's why I finish this every year with The Rocky Horror Picture Show.


Post script - This is, to me, the most interesting post-script of the month.
And it is spoilerific. For me, this has forever changed the way I watch and see the movie.
So be sure you want to read it.
WARNING: "Only if you want to change part of how you see the movie forever." spoilers below
According to my reading, Brad Majors is actually gay. Like, from the start.


I have always read the movie that his experience shattered his All-American world-view and left him lost and directionless, personally, and especially sexually.
But, in fact, there was a script for a sequel to Rocky Horror. And I don't mean Shock Treatment. And in that script, it was very clear that Brad is actually gay and his experience forced him out of the closet and he and a surviving Rocky use Frank's technology and work to try to resurrect him because Brad finds himself totally devoted to Frank. He is basically the new Columbia in terms of being swept up in Frank's narcissistic world.
So what's the point?
If you watch Rocky Horror with that in mind, it's fairly obvious that it was written into the original film as well. Brad's pause and consideration after Janet catches the bouquet, the way he looks at Rocky when Rocky's body is first revealed, obviously the sex scene, and there's a comment Frank makes, "You've wasted so much time already...", there are actually a lot of moments that make it fairly clear... if you know.
Brad was gay the whole time and his whole exaggerated persona was over-compensation for what he was hiding. And Frank saw it and outed him.


"And all I know is down inside I'm blee-ee-ding."




I forgot the opening line.
Halloween III and The Rocky Horror Picture Show are two great ones to end with. The former I've grown to respect more and more over the years (and was a Halloween night staple with friends.) The latter I had a brief obsession with as a teenager, and is special to me as well.
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Latest Review : Le Circle Rouge (1970)





“You can’t see the horror of what you’re doing.”

First Hammer of the season! And none too soon.

I am going to assume that everyone here knows the story of Frankenstein, more or less, and just get down to the business of what makes this film so enjoyable.
Terence Fisher. There is a lot of talk about the "Bava look" which became the "Argento look" and so forth, but Fisher's use of bold striking color and colored lighting predates either. Bava didn't direct his first film until a year after this movie came out and he was still directing in Black and White when Horror Of Dracula dropped. The New Gothic is rightly (in my study and opinion) attributed to Hammer and Fisher was the man who built that house, yet Bava and Argento are considered "auteurs" and somehow Fisher's name rarely comes up in that discussion. Fisher actually hated the term and didn't like to be called that, but let's face it, he's pretty much the man who created color Gothic Horror.
And he put the blood in movies.
I said to myself during the film, "Man, this movie is actually really f*cking gruesome." It’s kinda surprising, even though I’ve seen it a couple times before. But some of those organs in jars are real organs. Those are actual sheep’s eyeballs in the jar masquerading as human eyeballs in the eyeball scene. In 1957? Did Fisher invent gore? There are certainly a lot of people, according to my reading, who think he did. Just look at how much more visceral his Frankenstein is than the previous incarnations.


That brings us to Christopher Lee. As I'll discuss later in another film, Lee took his acting very seriously, regardless of what part he was playing. It was always craft to him and he was a consummate professional. His casting here makes for a very different movie than if you just got a big stuntman. Wes Craven talked about how important it was to get the right actor for Freddy Krueger when prevailing wisdom at the time was that you got a stunt-man to play that kind of role. And, let’s be honest, that whole series persists because of Englund’s performance. This is quite true of Lee here nearly 30 years earlier and it's part of the reason that, while I like most of the Hammer Frankenstein franchise, this is the one.
Lee actually does a really good job of conveying, wordlessly, that he is suffering because of Victor creating him. And that he’s suffering just by being alive.


Lee can be so great, I really kinda wish he’d gotten more to do in his career. I know he did a lot of films but most of the ones that are memorable are him playing some monster or uncomplicated villain. Even Saruman is kinda just a mustache-twirler, even though Lee makes him rather memorable. A lot of people have played The Monster but I would submit that only Karloff and Lee played him memorably.
And now we get to Peter Cushing as The Real Monster.
The film does a nice job of setting up how this young genius goes wrong or perhaps how he never really had a moral compass but was never in a position to do anything really horrible… until he was. But it is Cushing who brings it to life. The scene where he just cuts off the corpse’s head and drops it in the acid while his partner looks on with just a trace of both revulsion and realization that Victor lacks any real humanity, well that’s just the right notes there and Cushing hits them unflinchingly. There is a real menace in how sociopathic Cushing portrays Victor, so differently than Colin Clive/James Whale's take on the character.
The way he’s been lying to the housemaid that he’s going to marry her to have this ongoing affair with her and then laughs in her face when she finally calls him on it. And then of course, he just locks her in with The Monster. There’s the whole “who’s the real monster” thing people talk about with this story and so many others like it, this movie and Cushing make no bones about it. They’re very clear that Victor is a high-functioning psychopath and that, by late in the second act, there is nothing he won’t do and Cushing fully embraces and sells it.


Cushing's Victor does not give a f*ck and, actually, he can't even understand why anyone would. And that is the definition of a psychopath.

I think it is lost on most people, as we see Hammer Horror as rather quaint these days, that in its day it was absolutely trying to shock audiences. Bright red blood. Actual sheep’s eyeballs (standing in for actual human eyeballs). Severed hands. In 1957. They were absolutely going for shock. I’d kind of like to see a timeline of gore in Horror movies and see where Hammer falls. This film is just 3 years after Creature From The Black Lagoon where most of the deaths are off-screen and all are bloodless, and here we have eyeballs and brains and shit.
This is, therefore, a landmark film, a sentinel event in genre history, and deserves to be recognized as such.

--------------------------------------------------

Post Script -
Just a reminder to everyone that “Over At The Frankenstein Place” from The Rocky Horror Picture Show exists because it was filmed in the same castle as this film... as, frankly Rocky Horror is nearly just a glam-rock remake of this one with some other 50s/60s Sci-Fi thrown in (and nods to the Universal ones as well).



They even used an almost identical tank to the one in this film, just painted garishly red. Even the bandages Rocky is wrapped in are essentially exactly the way Victor's monster is shown and portrayed here, with Peter Hinwood's (Rocky) first staggering steps with just his head unwrapped, arms out, a literal mimicry of Lee's emergence scene. And the whole bit about how it took “an accident” to spark life which is exactly what happens here, the lightning storm tripping the mechanism when he’s out of the room. And on and on. So, don't forget, when you watch Rocky Horror this October, that this is really the film that spawned it.
Very insightful.

I agree about the portrayal of Victor - he is a psychopathic villain in this version.

I think Shelly's version puts him more in the metaphorical position to represent science in general, and how curiosity can turn to obsession, and obsession can result in irresponsibility, etc., etc., thus the entire story is a warning about responsibility & the potential dangers of trying to play at being God.

While I agree Lee transmitted suffering at his horrific condition, there was nothing sympathetic about the creature in the respect of having even the potential for kindness or compassion (like Karloff's version) - which is the aspect I believe made the classic movie version such an icon - the tortured creature who is only driven to violence by those who refuse to leave it in peace, but is really just seeking a sense of belonging & love.

Lee's creature was just a killing machine for no apparent reason, except perhaps he wanted to channel his suffering to anyone & everyone else he encountered.

I interpreted his first attack on Victor to the possibility that he remembered Victor murdered the man the creature's brain once belonged to... but later he kills a blind man for no reason and apparently a boy. The creature kills Justine just because Victor places her in a room with him, and it attempts to kill Elizabeth when she crosses its path. So, it seems the creature just kills anyone as a reflex reaction (once again making it seem far less sympathetic than previous, more intelligent versions).

Speaking of graphic violence - I thought one of the most shocking scenes was that of Victor's murder of the elderly professor (who's brain he later uses for the creature). Not sure if they used a stuntman for part or a dummy for the whole fall from the stairs - but the impact of the professor's head hitting the floor after falling from the second story was very realistic looking, and, combined with the apathetic cruelty behind it, was disturbing to watch (perhaps more so than the scenes with blood).

Since the professor landed on his head, who's to say his brain wasn't damaged then (or at least partially damaged) as opposed to when Victor and Paul break the jar the brain is in during a struggle - which is what Victor attributes the entirety of the brain damage to.



Victim of The Night
Very insightful.

I agree about the portrayal of Victor - he is a psychopathic villain in this version.

I think Shelly's version puts him more in the metaphorical position to represent science in general, and how curiosity can turn to obsession, and obsession can result in irresponsibility, etc., etc., thus the entire story is a warning about responsibility & the potential dangers of trying to play at being God.

While I agree Lee transmitted suffering at his horrific condition, there was nothing sympathetic about the creature in the respect of having even the potential for kindness or compassion (like Karloff's version) - which is the aspect I believe made the classic movie version such an icon - the tortured creature who is only driven to violence by those who refuse to leave it in peace, but is really just seeking a sense of belonging & love.

Lee's creature was just a killing machine for no apparent reason, except perhaps he wanted to channel his suffering to anyone & everyone else he encountered.

I interpreted his first attack on Victor to the possibility that he remembered Victor murdered the man the creature's brain once belonged to... but later he kills a blind man for no reason and apparently a boy. The creature kills Justine just because Victor places her in a room with him, and it attempts to kill Elizabeth when she crosses its path. So, it seems the creature just kills anyone as a reflex reaction (once again making it seem far less sympathetic than previous, more intelligent versions).

Speaking of graphic violence - I thought one of the most shocking scenes was that of Victor's murder of the elderly professor (who's brain he later uses for the creature). Not sure if they used a stuntman for part or a dummy for the whole fall from the stairs - but the impact of the professor's head hitting the floor after falling from the second story was very realistic looking, and, combined with the apathetic cruelty behind it, was disturbing to watch (perhaps more so than the scenes with blood).

Since the professor landed on his head, who's to say his brain wasn't damaged then (or at least partially damaged) as opposed to when Victor and Paul break the jar the brain is in during a struggle - which is what Victor attributes the entirety of the brain damage to.
I agree with you but I think just disagree whether it's a positive or a negative.
One of the things we often talk about in music is "Are you covering a song as a cover-band or are you covering a song to do something with it?"
The former is fine and has its purpose, to make people feel the nostalgia for the time and place when they heard it and make them happy or to simply recreate a song that makes them happy as they know it.
The latter is actually an artistic process and a whole other kettle of fish. It can certainly miss but often covers that don't really hit are better and more interesting artistic expressions than covers that are kinda just mimicry. I think of Warpaint's cover of Bowie's "Ashes To Ashes". Bowie's version is a stunning masterpiece of the pain of addiction wrapped in cutting-edge art-pop. Warpaint's version captures none of the pain in Bowie's version and, in fact takes a completely different tonal approach to the song, practically turning it into Shoe-gaze, even though it hits many of the same musical beats. Is it as good as Bowie's? Of course not. But not because it's not the same. It's actually quite a good song in its own right. In fact, I have one friend who prefers it.
That's how I feel about Hammer's Frankenstein, Dracula, Mummy, and Werewolf movies. They take a very different approach than the source material, even if they hit some or even many of the same beats. Horror Of Dracula is wildly different from Dracula (the movie and the book, for that matter).
WARNING: "early-film spoiler" spoilers below
They jumble characters around, make Jonathan Harker a vampire-hunter from Jump Street, and kill him off fairly early on in the first act.
And they give it a very different tone. It's shocking and bloody and violent and sexy and very gothic and stylish and red, oh so red. But it's awesome in its own way.
Curse Of Frankenstein was the same.
"We're gonna remake Frankenstein."
"Well, they kinda did the hell outta Frankenstein, are we just gonna mimic it and hope for the best or are we gonna bring something new to it?"
"Oh, we're gonna bring something new to it, alright."
"Yeah, like what?"
"What if instead of the monster being a cautionary tale of a positive scientific obsession getting away from Victor, "the modern Prometheus", Victor was actually a sociopath to begin with and it just took the obsession of creating life to unmask it? I mean, wasn't Pretorius actually the more interesting character in Bride Of Frankenstein?"
"You had my curiosity. Now you have my attention."
"And what if the monster was more of a killing machine, like in Bride Of Frankenstein, where he says he hates life and kills multiple innocents? But even more so. Like, he's miserable and he suffers so he just kills everything he sees?"
"Why, I declare...!"
"Also, what if we had, like, bright-red blood, severed limbs, and eyeballs and shit? I mean, on-screen?I"
"Dude. I have a husband's bulge."


Edit - I forgot I meant to agree with you about the older professor. It's a 1-for-1 subversion of The Bride Of Frankenstein in that here the old mentor scientist shows up and is this lovable guy while Victor is the sociopath, as opposed to Pretorius the sociopath showing up and blackmailing Victor into doing the bad thing in BoF. And it is a pretty shocking scene of violence given the time and also the time-period in the film and all the quaint Victorian manners.
And yes, the brain might already have been damaged, but I also think it's interesting how the monster becomes more of a mindless killing machine after he's shot in the head and Victor has to repair the brain and resurrect him again.



Post Script - As a doctor, it’s always hilarious to see actors portray doctors. The shit that comes out of their mouths. I ain’t mad about it. It’s adorable.
And honestly, I like to think of doctors the way Atkins portrays
This is kinda how I feel whenever I see anything computer related on film
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This is kinda how I feel whenever I see anything computer related on film
I'll bet. My buddy, who's a lawyer, read that and texted me that he feels the same way about lawyers in movies. It's just a thing. Honestly, it does bug me, not that they are misportraying doctors in my case, but that they don't take the time to achieve the authenticity, whatever the field may be.



I agree with you but I think just disagree whether it's a positive or a negative.
One of the things we often talk about in music is "Are you covering a song as a cover-band or are you covering a song to do something with it?"
The former is fine and has its purpose, to make people feel the nostalgia for the time and place when they heard it and make them happy or to simply recreate a song that makes them happy as they know it.
The latter is actually an artistic process and a whole other kettle of fish. It can certainly miss but often covers that don't really hit are better and more interesting artistic expressions than covers that are kinda just mimicry. I think of Warpaint's cover of Bowie's "Ashes To Ashes". Bowie's version is a stunning masterpiece of the pain of addiction wrapped in cutting-edge art-pop. Warpaint's version captures none of the pain in Bowie's version and, in fact takes a completely different tonal approach to the song, practically turning it into Shoe-gaze, even though it hits many of the same musical beats. Is it as good as Bowie's? Of course not. But not because it's not the same. It's actually quite a good song in its own right. In fact, I have one friend who prefers it.
That's how I feel about Hammer's Frankenstein, Dracula, Mummy, and Werewolf movies. They take a very different approach than the source material, even if they hit some or even many of the same beats. Horror Of Dracula is wildly different from Dracula (the movie and the book, for that matter).
WARNING: "early-film spoiler" spoilers below
They jumble characters around, make Jonathan Harker a vampire-hunter from Jump Street, and kill him off fairly early on in the first act.
And they give it a very different tone. It's shocking and bloody and violent and sexy and very gothic and stylish and red, oh so red. But it's awesome in its own way.
Curse Of Frankenstein was the same.
"We're gonna remake Frankenstein."
"Well, they kinda did the hell outta Frankenstein, are we just gonna mimic it and hope for the best or are we gonna bring something new to it?"
"Oh, we're gonna bring something new to it, alright."
"Yeah, like what?"
"What if instead of the monster being a cautionary tale of a positive scientific obsession getting away from Victor, "the modern Prometheus", Victor was actually a sociopath to begin with and it just took the obsession of creating life to unmask it? I mean, wasn't Pretorius actually the more interesting character in Bride Of Frankenstein?"
"You had my curiosity. Now you have my attention."
"And what if the monster was more of a killing machine, like in Bride Of Frankenstein, where he says he hates life and kills multiple innocents? But even more so. Like, he's miserable and he suffers so he just kills everything he sees?"
"Why, I declare...!"
"Also, what if we had, like, bright-red blood, severed limbs, and eyeballs and shit? I mean, on-screen?I"
"Dude. I have a husband's bulge."


Edit - I forgot I meant to agree with you about the older professor. It's a 1-for-1 subversion of The Bride Of Frankenstein in that here the old mentor scientist shows up and is this lovable guy while Victor is the sociopath, as opposed to Pretorius the sociopath showing up and blackmailing Victor into doing the bad thing in BoF. And it is a pretty shocking scene of violence given the time and also the time-period in the film and all the quaint Victorian manners.
And yes, the brain might already have been damaged, but I also think it's interesting how the monster becomes more of a mindless killing machine after he's shot in the head and Victor has to repair the brain and resurrect him again.
Great conversation!

You make me think back to my first statement on the subject - "if I'd never heard of 'Frankenstein', I'd rate the movie higher."

Thus, much of my criticism was based on comparison and my expectations on how the monster was "supposed" to be.

While I found the monster rather dull, I was entertained by Cushing's Dr. Frankenstein as the "real villain" of the piece.

I have one correction to my past review - I'd said only 3 characters from the book were in "Curse of Frankenstein" but Justine was a maidservant to the Frankenstein family in the book - she is executed for the murder of Victor's little brother which was committed by the creature. While her name & occupation are the same, she seems a highly different character in "Curse" as here she's not just a maid, but a mistress / concubine!