Happy All-Hallow’s Month! In anticipation of Halloween — which, let’s face it, we’ve been anticipating since last Halloween — Daily Grindhouse will again be offering daily celebrations of horror movies here on our site. This October’s theme is horror sequels — the good, the bad, the really bad, and the unfairly unappreciated. We’re calling it SCREAMQUELS!
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By the end of the 1930s, Universal Studios had moved away from the stable of monsters that helped to establish it as a major player in Hollywood, putting a moratorium on its horror fare altogether following the release of 1936’s DRACULA’S DAUGHTER. But in one of the earliest instances of Hollywood being unable to ignore the draw of this genre, Universal couldn’t help but notice the runaway success of its re-releases for DRACULA and FRANKENSTEIN: try as they might to carve a different identity for itself, the public simply craved these iconic characters, prompting the studio to produce SON OF FRANKENSTEIN for a 1939 release. Arriving four years after BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN and eight years after the original film, it saddled Hollywood veteran Rowland V. Lee with the unenviable task of taking the reins from James Whale, whose genius looms over and defines those landmark films. Without him involved, a sequel almost feels like a mercenary proposition, and it would be hard to begrudge anyone of that position. Such skepticism is warranted, just as it still is when we see producers and studios pass a beloved property around without the involvement of its original creators. Defying this skepticism, however, is just one of the many reasons SON OF FRANKENSTEIN feels like a minor miracle: here was a studio refusing to leave a perfect duo of pictures well enough alone, and all it did was go out and make a worthy successor. More than that, SON OF FRANKENSTEIN easily stands alongside its predecessors to form what I’ve always called “The Karloff Trilogy.”
Not content to churn out a cut-rate cheapie, Universal invested nearly a half-million dollars into the sequel, outfitting it with an all-star cast headlined by Karloff in his signature role. Like its predecessors, SON OF FRANKENSTEIN just looks like a big deal with its magnificent production design and evocative photography. But more than that, it’s a film that makes some daring choices: set some generations after the events of the first two films, it finds Baron Wolf von Frankenstein (Basil Rathbone) returning to his homeland to claim his inheritance following the death of his infamous father, whose exploits have become the stuff of legend. Fittingly, Whale’s films have become like twisted fairy tales: where those movies had an almost timeless quality, SON is pointedly set in modern times, creating an odd sort of aesthetic tension. Much like Wolf cannot escape the legacy of his father, this sequel is haunted by the gothic expressionism of its predecessors. From the moment we see Wolf on the train with his family, it almost feels like we’re moving back in time to the damned desolation of an old country that’s never been able to move past its twisted history. Gnarled, bare trees pepper a landscape where the abandoned ruins of Henry Frankenstein’s laboratory still looms, while the townspeople wear his monstrous creation like an albatross. While the creature has been thought to be dead for decades, there are those — like Inspector Krogh (Lionel Atwill), who lost his arm to it as a child — who still remember when he terrorized the countryside.
Lately, though, a different ghoul has terrorized the town in the form of Ygor (Bela Lugosi), a deranged blacksmith who survived his execution. Left with a crooked neck and thirst for vengeance, he hatches a scheme to manipulate Wolf into reviving the monster. For Wolf, it’s a chance to rewrite family history; for Ygor, it’s a chance to exact revenge on the jury that sentenced him to be hanged. Straying even further from the pages of Mary Shelley’s novel than its predecessors, SON is nonetheless a clever continuation, one that blends the existential terror of inheriting a horrible legacy with a grisly revenge plot. Once again, Karloff’s childlike creature finds himself the pawn of greater ambitions, and it’s fair to say that his presence feels diminished in SON, where he spends most of the film murdering Ygor’s enemies and befriending Wolf’s young son, Peter (Donnie Dunagan), with the latter occurring off-screen.
But it’s also fair to say that it’s a byproduct of Lugosi absolutely stealing the show from his famous contemporary. Of course, Lugosi’s name will always be synonymous with Dracula, the role that garnered him international fame and cemented his legacy as a horror icon; however, Ygor is arguably his best, most haunting performance. Sporting a devious glimmer in his eye, he commands the screen with a hypnotic gaze, coaxing sympathy and inspiring chills in equal measure. He fancies himself like the Monster: a misunderstood victim who didn’t ask to be subjected to such a cruel fate. Unlike the Monster, he’s an absolute shit-heel, and Lugosi clearly relishes the opportunity, crafting a character that heralded a late career comeback of sorts: not only would Lugosi reprise the role for 1942’s THE GHOST OF FRANKENSTEIN, but he would finally play the Monster itself two years later in FRANKENSTEIN MEETS THE WOLF MAN.
It says a lot, though, that the title SON OF FRANKENSTEIN immediately conjures the shot of creepy old Ygor high above in the ruins of Frankenstein castle, the haunting notes of his weird flute floating through the air. Like so many of the Universal horrors, it’s a film that thrives on otherworldly atmosphere and set design as Lee evokes the grandeur of Whale’s transportative vision with fog-shrouded vistas and vast, imposing interiors, from the Frankenstein library to the decrepit crypt where the Monster rests alongside the remains of his father.
Lee accents his bold choices with nice flourishes: lightning flashing in the distance, a new coat for the Monster, Krogh’s captivating tale of his encounter with the creature, a sulfur pit that lurks beneath the remnants of the cluttered laboratory that provides a rousing resolution for an action-packed climax. At 100 minutes long, SON is every bit the epic it deserves to be as both the epoch and requiem for an era: while it wasn’t the last time we’d see the Universal Monsters (much less Frankenstein’s Monster, who would return several more times over the next decade), SON marked the end of the studio’s first wave. Save for some notable exceptions (like 1941’s THE WOLF MAN), the studio’s horror fare did start to feel a bit more mercenary as it leaned on a series of sequels and crossovers culminating in a pair of fun but frivolous Monster Rally films. As such, it’s clear that SON is more of a kin to its predecessors rather than its successors, largely on the strength of a gothic bravura that many later efforts would struggle to recapture.
The Universal Monster movies will always be dear to me as my personal gateway into horror after my dad introduced them to me when I was about four years old. I can still recall him regaling me with the story of how he once watched it as a small child, peeking from beneath his bed sheets as Karloff’s Monster staggered onto the television screen as part of a “Shock Theater” programming block. I suppose it’s fitting, then, that this story of fathers and sons remains the most dear to me since I inexplicably gravitated towards it more than any of the others. To this day, I still can’t account for that, maybe because there’s no accounting for the tastes of children. At that age, whatever strikes your fancy hits like lightning, sparking the embers of imagination that wind up glowing throughout your entire life. Something about SON OF FRANKENSTEIN still registers in the deep recesses of my imagination and transports me to a time and place where it feels like anything — whether it was grand, horrifying, or maybe a mix of both — was possible. Much like Wolf von Frankenstein, I find myself inexplicably fascinated by the sublime awe and horror that once captivated my father. One day, I hope to pass it along to my own son, who may or may not become a Monster Kid himself. So it goes.
Tags: Basil Rathbone, Bela Lugosi, boris karloff, Caroline Cooke, Donnie Dunagan, Drama, Edgar Norton, Emma Dunn, Frank Skinner, George Robinson, Gustav von Seyffertitz, Harry Cording, Horror, Josephine Hutchinson, Lawrence Grant, Lionel Atwill, Lionel Belmore, Lorimer Johnston, Michael Mark, Rowland V. Lee, Russ Powell, Sequels, Suspense, Ted Kent, The 1930s, Tom Ricketts, Universal Horror, Universal Monsters, Universal Studios, Ward Bond
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