Frankenstein Review

Messages: A scientist recklessly experiments with life and death by artificially bringing to life a man he has fashioned from various body parts. Two characters steal corpses and body parts from graves, the gallows, and a medical college.

Role models: Dr. Frankenstein plays God with horrible consequences, the monster is tortured and violent and the townspeople lack empathy or kindness. The good side of human nature is mostly ignored.

Violence: Relatively mild violence compared with today's horror flicks. However, killings include a child who drowns when a character throws her into a lake, although it's clear that he doesn't intend to hurt her. Her actual death is not shown, though her father carries her body through his village. A man threatens the monster with a torch and whips him while he's chained in a cellar. A doctor is strangled, a man is hanged. A mob of villagers hunts down a monster and chases him into a windmill. They set fire to the windmill, and the monster is shown trapped inside under debris. Various scenes of fighting, scuffling, attempted strangulation.

Sex: A man and a woman kiss.

Language: Not an issue

Consumerism: Not an issue

Drinking, drugs and smoking: A gravedigger smokes a pipe. A man smokes a cigarette. Characters drink champagne and wine. A sick man is given brandy to drink as a remedy.