This essay by Betty Gabriel on her scariest movie of all-time is one of several contributed as part of Variety’s 100 Best Horror Movies of All Time package. What “Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein” lacks in jump scares and other familiar horror tropes, it makes up for in its homage to the source material. The author’s name is in the title, and considering how influential this novel has been — and how, in the original film, she’s credited as Mrs.
Percy Shelley — it is a significant gesture. Kenneth Branagh , the Shakespearean wiz of my dreams, brings that passionate theatricality to this piece, and steers the ship with dramatic heft and kinetic electricity. The rest of the cast, most of whom have Oscar nominations by the way, is dynamic, particularly Helena Bonham Carter and especially towards the end.
It’s primarily a drama with loads of romance, but not without a few moments of terror as well. Mr. Robert De Niro as the Creature, is the vengeful heart of it all.
To watch him flesh out this grotesque creature with contemplation and pathos shows that no matter the genre, the character, makeup, clothing (or lack thereof), there is humanity underneath it all. For me though, the most horrifying element is Frankenstein’s all-consuming ambition. While well-intentioned at first, it becomes a reckless obsession, and the arbitrary cutting up and stitching together of disjointed parts with no regard or respect for them and no attempt at integrating them leads to something .
