Talk:The Curse of Frankenstein
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The Plot Synopsis is really bad... Suggest rewrite. I would do it myself, but the film is not fresh in my mind. 88.108.115.137 07:23, 13 September 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Original research?
The following extract from the article looks like a dubious bit of personal interpretation:
- The Curse of Frankstein is important for a number of reasons. The film began Hammer's tradition of horror film-making. It also marked the beginning of a Gothic horror revival in the cinema on both sides of the Atlantic, paralleling the rise to fame of Universal's Dracula :and Frankenstein series in the 1930s. The level of gore and violence was pioneering, and much condemned at the time — although this film, and Fisher/Hammer's subsequent Gothic horrors, can be seen as the forebear of the modern horror film.
- Hammer's version of Frankenstein differed from Universal's in several important ways:
- the films were in colour, not black-and-white,
- the focus was on the Baron rather than the creature,
- the Baron was assisted by young men eager for greater knowledge rather than hunchbacks (like Fritz in Frankenstein (1931) or Nina in House of Dracula).
- The film's structure also opens it up to an interesting interpretation, that being that the story of the creature is nothing more than an hallucination of Baron Frankenstein's. The majority of the film takes place as a flashback, with the Baron relating the story to his friend Paul, which means that this version of the truth of the murders for which the Baron is condemned might be taking place only in his own mind. This is reinforced by Paul's comment to Elizabeth -- who had been the Baron's fiance -- at the end of the film, that there is nothing more they can do for him. Taken one way, they can't help him avoid the guillotine. Taken another way, Paul is cynically sacrificing the Baron (and the truth about the creature's existence) so he can run off with Elizabeth. Taken a third way, Paul recognizes that the Baron is hopelessly insane, and is guilty of the murders, despite his desire to blame them on his imaginary creature. No subsequent Hammer horror film had this level of ambiguity. Colin4C 20:25, 17 October 2007 (UTC)