If a completed novel or movie can be said to be the sum of its part, well, Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein fulfills that concept in spades.

Mary Shelly wrote the novel at the age of 18, which if anything proves teenagers haven’t changed much when it comes to that dark period we call adolescence. The novel was published when she was 19 and her name did not even appear on the original London edition. Her novel is a classic warning of the limits of science, or pushing beyond those limits into things we perhaps should not, but her version varies considerably from the Universal Films’ adaptations of the 1930s, which is the monster I will focus on here.

Frankenstein’s monster, mistakenly referred to as just Frankenstein by many—Frankenstein was the scientist, not the creature—shambles his way through the classic film starring Boris Karloff. Henry Frankenstein assembles a collection of body parts and harnesses a bit of electricity in an effort to create life—and he succeeds, but that life is a grunting groaning monster with a pretty bad attitude. Unfortunately when a brain was needed for the creature, the wrong one was used, that of a criminal, and the creation knows only murder and mayhem when it rises. Flat of head, big of feet, with bolts sticking out of his neck, he becomes the terror of the village, hunted and maligned. In the end he meets death—at least until the sequels.

The movie varies so much from the novel it would be too long a compassion to go into here, except to say, for one of the few times in Hollywood’s history, the story becomes not one but two classic works. One, Shelly’s fictional masterpiece, and the other a brilliant piece of horror filmmaking. Boris Karloff brings the creature to life without words, simply a masterful performance. The film spawns Bride of Frankenstein, Frankenstein Meets the Wolfman (my personal favorite) and other sequels. Other film adaptations that stuck closer to the book all fell flat compared to the Universal movie. And the creature became a Halloween archetype.

The theme was used in numerous other movie and TV shows as well. Dark Shadows did a take off on the book, creating Adam under the guidance of mad Dr. Lang, even adding a bride called Eve. Herman Munster portrayed a comical slant on the creature and Frankie appeared in the cartoon The Groovy Ghoulies, and a ‘60s’ Saturday morning cartoon called Frankenstein, Jr. A scene from the movie—originally cut—where the creature encounters a little girl, accidentally killing her, was paid homage to in the first Incredible Hulk telefilm. I’m pretty sure at some point the monster—or one very much like him—will make an appearance in The Chloe Files or The Nightmare Club. He’s just too good a monster not to.

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