Smartorhypo Highly Overrated But Still Good

Matho The biggest problem with this movie is it’s a little better than you think it might be, which somehow makes it worse. As in, it takes itself a bit too seriously, which makes most of the movie feel kind of dull.

Logan By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

Billy Ollie Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

Ian (Flash Review)Frankenstein's monster continues to be a terror. Will switching out the mentally ill brain with a good brain calm the villager's fears about the monster once and for all? This film is a step down from the previous films with a dip in quality and Boris Karloff ends his reign as the monster. The monster has been discovered in a sulfuric tomb from previous explosions and the body has been kept in a good state for more rounds of experiments. Poor old fella. If you have seen the previous Frankenstein films to this point, you may as well keep going as that is what I did. Still good yet not as good as the previous films.

mike48128 The running gag is that the castle looks different in every version after "The Bride of Frankenstein"! More turrets on this one! Kind of predictable and slow moving. The destroyed miniatures look so fake. The monster has a worse haircut and a hairline that is more familiar here, and looks that way thru "A&C Meet Frankenstein". (The make-up process has obviously been "streamlined".) Too familiar. The monster falls in love with a little girl (again) but does not hurt her. Ygor has his brain put in the monster and indeed it talks and thinks like Ygor. A major disappointment. Dr. Ludwig Frankenstein willingly dies with the monster? It makes no sense at all. Many chances at "horror" are wasted: Ygor just dies under anesthesia? The transplant is not graphic and is barely shown at all! The "Ghost" of Dr. Wolf Frankenstein is unconvincing, and nobody other than Ludwig even sees it. Overall, The whole movie is just not evil, creepy, scary or hideous enough. Lon Chaney Jr. has the monster's swagger down pat but no character emotion to speak off. So many unanswered questions plague the later films: Does The Monster remain blind? (No). How come he speaks only on rare occasions? Luckily, the next two entries are actually far more entertaining,if not even more preposterous!

Nigel P Those villagers. Those rampaging, outraged villagers. They had been a staple of the first three Frankenstein pictures, just as they would be in the three that followed this. Stuck in the middle (excluding Abbott and Costello's meet-up) of the series, their anger bookends 'Ghost ...'. It is ironic that this virtuous mob, already furious even at the film's beginnings, are the ones who resurrect Frankenstein's now silent creation by blowing up the family castle.Cedric Hardwicke is Doctor Ludwig Frankenstein, son of Colin Clive and brother of Basil Rathbone, and by the far the most retrained family member, possessing none of his relatives' intensity. Bela Lugosi returns as Ygor, happily unaffected by being 'riddled with bullets' in the previous film. His balance of mischief and malice is finely crafted and Ygor remains the picture's most animated character. Ralph Bellamy's rather dully efficient hero Eric, and his glamorous partner Elsa (Evelyn Ankers) are the alleged goodies, as always less interesting than the villains, a clan aided by Doctor Bohmer played by the mighty Lionel Atwill.The Monster's first appearance, clumsily stumbling out from the now hard-set sulphur pit that incarcerated and preserved him, is effective. One's hope is that the monster's robotic groping is a result of his ordeal, but that is pretty much the sum total of Lon Chaney's (the 'Jr' is now gone from his name in the credits) interpretation of the role. Having said that, the following scene, with Ygor chasing after him across the blasted health-land as The Monster tries to find the best spot to attract the lightening has a charming surreality about it; like a panicking father trying to gain some control over an errant child. And yet the people the mis-matched duo meet in Vasaria as they search for the latest Baron Frankenstein, are disappointingly unafraid of them. More a curiosity befalls the young maiden and gaggle of townsfolk as they set eyes on the unsightly couple, and this, alongside Chaney's soulless performance, undermines The Monster's effectiveness greatly.Once in Vasaria, the Monster is captured and imprisoned. As Ludwig is brought forward and pretends not to recognise the creature, we catch a glimmer of emotion on his/its face as anger takes hold (to balance with this, there is a scene where Ygor, gesturing towards the Monster, exclaims 'Can't you see? He is for the first time happy in his life'. Chaney's unmoving, unblinking, totally statue-lie performance gives no indication of any emotion whatsoever, and either renders the scene ludicrous, or displays Ygor's humour extends to heavy sarcasm).To remind viewers of the original story, we are treated to a flashback from the original film, also reminding us how much more moodily lit, extensively furnished and interestingly directed the 1931 picture was by comparison, although it substitutes a close-up of Chaney's monster in place of the original Karloff. Director Erle C Kenton makes great use of shadows when dealing with the Monster – sadly, the shadow close-ups bear little resemblance to the Monsters actual actions or placing within the composition.The ghost to justify the title is that of the original Baron (this time with Hardwicke playing Colin Clive's role) visiting his son and introducing the idea of placing a different brain into his creation.It is just possible that Chaney's subdued take was deliberate to highlight how startlingly changed he is by the film's finale. With Ygor's brain in his head, he speaks with Ygor's voice in an impressively dubbed scene. This new evilly grinning personality is how the Monster would remain (theoretically) throughout the next four Universal films since no further transplant takes place. Suddenly blinded by an averse blood-type reaction, the Monster causes the laboratory to explode, lending us some nice shots of his face blistering and frazzling in the flames, before some cheerful 'wrapping-up' music accompanies Eric and Elsa happily away to safety leaving the evil-doers to burn.More a 'monster movie' than a 'horror film', this is fast moving and fun (more so than the previous 'Son of...', although it lacks the spectacle of the earlier offering). Yet it is a step down from the ambitions of the preceding Frankenstein pictures. By this time, WW2 was in full swing, and it's real-life horrors outweighed anything fiction had to offer. Perhaps, along with the financial constraints, Universal deliberately set out to make their horror output more lightweight.

Spikeopath Of course the problem with the Frankenstein sequels, of the Universal Studios kind, was that they had to follow the genre firework that was Frankenstein (1931) and the monolithic titan that followed that one in 1935, The Bride of Frankenstein. These are tough acts to follow; still are actually!Son of Frankenstein (1939) managed very well, it had Basil Rathbone in it and Bela Lugosi giving great horror oomph as Ygor. Boris Karloff bowed out as the monster after that one, leaving an iconic legacy and an insistence that the monster didn't speak. The result of Karloff's (ahem) request has proved divisive amongst Frankenstein fans, does it need a voice for personality, or is it better off as a lumbering rage machine only? Point being that in this one, he gets a voice, courtesy of Lon Chaney Junior's stint in the role, and it's not exactly a success.Ghost of Frankenstein represents the start of the decline of the franchise, a noticeable drop in quality across the board. It's like Universal caught the cash cow disease and decided that quantity and not quality was what mattered. They would eventually team up the bolted necked one with Abbott and Costello, with fun results, but the horror aspects began to wane here in 1942. Lugosi is on hand for some more Ygor mischief, Cedric Hardwicke and Lionel Atwill as scientists with opposite ideals are reassuring presences, while Evelyn Ankers is sexy and costumed with a great eye for detail.At just 67 minutes in length the film thankfully doesn't have time to be boring, though action is in short supply, so hooray for castle destruction and fire unbound! While Woody Bredell and Milton R. Krasner, via their photographic lenses ensure Gothic atmosphere is consistently ripe. Right, it's time for Universal Monster Tag Teams next... 5/10