Monster Mash: New “Bride of Frankenstein” Planned

The great original Bride and Monster. 

According to The Hollywood Reporter, a remake of the 1935 classic “The Bride of Frankenstein” is in the works. Neil Burger, best known for writing and directing “The Illusionist” is in talks to do both tasks for “Bride.”

A number of other writers have taken a stab at the project over the last few years, but Universal has lately been expressing some urgency about pillaging remaking its classic horror film library. Their remake of “The Werewolf” is coming out this fall, and a remake of “The Creature from the Black Lagoon” is being planned. The studio seems to be hoping that the familiarity of these titles will equal easy money.

“The Bride of Frankenstein” is, of course, a follow-up to “Frankenstein” In “Bride,” Dr. Frankenstein makes a girlfriend (Elsa Lanchester) for his lonely manmade Monster (Boris Karloff). Most of the movie is about more adventures for the Monster–the Bride only shows up at the end, but when she does, things go badly, though–she rejects him. It’s actually quite sad, something which is due, no doubt, to the performances of the actors and the hand of director James Whale.

Although there have been a number of versions of “Frankenstein,” the only remake of “The Bride of Frankenstein” was a disastrous 1985 movie, starring…yikes! Sting and Jennifer Beals. That was a bust, unsurprisingly, so there’s nowhere to go but up. I (of course) dislike the idea of remaking a film that is great–you have nowhere to go but down, but I can’t stem the tide of shoddy remakes that litter Hollywood studios today. Burger is probably at least a respectable choice. “The Illusionist” was almost a great movie–my biggest issue with it was casting–I find it hard to buy Jessica Biel in a period piece, but otherwise, it was very good.

So I guess I’ll just hold my tongue and my rants about the reason for remaking this and hope for the best….