Few characters in the history of horror have captured our attention like the Bride of Frankenstein.
Elsa Lanchester originated this electrifying role in James Whale’s 1935 classic sequel to Frankenstein, and we’ve been collectively obsessed ever since. With just a few minutes of actual screen time, the Bride quickly makes her presence known by rejecting the Monster to whom she’s been promised. For 90 years, we’ve explored this striking archetype through just about every conceivable lens. As we approach Maggie Gyllenhaal’s The Bride, which promises to be an overtly feminist take on the classic character, let’s renew our vows to this beguiling woman in a cinematic trip down the aisle, er .. memory lane.
Reimagining Mary Shelley’s foundational text, Franc Roddam’s The Bride (1985) is quintessentially 80s in tone. Released fifty years after Bride of Frankenstein, the film picks up where Whale left off with another dark and stormy night as Dr. Charles Frankenstein (Sting) prepares another dangerous experiment. He’s wired an intricate globe to harness the lightning and channel it into a woman’s corpse. But something goes wrong with the straps and pulleys holding her aloft and the constructed body is wracked with electrical currents from a multitude of lightning strikes. Convinced his creation has been destroyed, Charles prepares to declare a total loss when he hears muffled coughing from within the shroud. Clearing away the bandages, a roomful of men stare down at the face of a beautiful woman.
While this setup mirrors Whale’s iconic scene, the experiment’s results are wildly different. Jennifer Beals stars as the creature Charles calls Eva, named for the proverbial first woman, auspiciously created from the rib of a man. Just two years after her breakout performance in Flashdance, Beals had become a household name. The entire world was familiar with the gorgeous young woman’s slim silhouette, and Roddam’s staging highlights her attractive physique. Rather than a heavy sheet or billowy medical gown, Eva’s body is wrapped in semi-transparent bandages that more closely resemble a dancer’s catsuit.
Splayed on a thin harness, she’s suspended just below a massive globe wired to ripple with electric blue light, not unlike imagery from the iconic dance film. Near the peak of his own popularity, Sting’s performance as a dashing but cruel scientist adds a distinctly modern flair to this gothic story. While it may be set in a 19th-century castle, Roddam’s version of the Frankenstein story would fit right in on MTV, which itself had premiered just four years earlier.
The creature that emerges from this gauzy shroud is also remarkably modern, at least by 80s standards. Removing a white medical cap releases Beals’ trademark cascade of curly brown hair teased into an untamed halo to replicate Lanchester’s gravity-defying ‘do. But Roddam’s modern take on the Universal monster omits the white streaks seeming to emerge from her temples. Eva’s face is pale and makeup-free, seeming to imply an unbridled innocence. But the most striking difference, particularly compared to Clancy Brown’s Monster, is a lack of scars indicating a corpse’s construction. Though we will learn that her body has been pieced together from appendages salvaged from the dead, no evidence of this assembly remains on Eva’s smooth skin.
Like Botticelli’s The Birth of Venus, she has emerged from Dr. Frankenstein’s table a voluptuous woman fully formed. Ironically, Kelly LeBrock had just made waves as a similar creation in the John Hughes comedy, Weird Science, which premiered two weeks before The Bride. The cinematic scientists of 1985 were not concerned with creating life itself, but in reconstructing a vision of female perfection.
Roddam continues this focus on Eva’s form in her first conversation with her creator. As Charles sits by the fire, she wanders, naked, into the room. Her head and torso are hidden in shadow while a beam of light falls on her pubic area. This framing is likely meant to disguise Beals’ body double, but it also presents Eva as a dehumanized sexual being. While musing about his experiment, Charles will profess a desire to create “the new woman … independent, free, as bold and as proud as a man.” But his actions tell another story. Over the course of their relationship, we will learn that Charles is only offering the illusion of power. What he actually wants is the “pliant” body on display in this scene, a blank female canvas to be molded into his perfect mate.
Though Charles has no discernible reaction to Eva’s nudity, his housekeeper is horrified. Mrs. Baumann (Geraldine Page) rushes into the room, desperate to cover the young woman’s body. This traditional mother figure has been tasked with taming Charles’ creation, who has no concept of societal norms. Her brazen nakedness is an affront to the gender-based expectations Mrs. Baumann has internalized. But Eva is not intentionally rocking the boat. In a precursor to Yorgos Lanthimos’s 2023 Oscar darling Poor Things, she is a woman bestowed with a man’s liberation. She has not been raised under a lifetime of misogyny, nor has she been bred to attract a powerful husband who will give her the protection of his status and wealth. Eva sees no need to cover her body because she has not been told that it is dangerous.
As Eva gains independence, she becomes a direct threat to Charles’ authority. Save for a few painful scenes in which she learns to speak — and one wild moment in which she screams at a cat — Beals becomes a feminist champion. Nodding to her Flashdance character, an ultra-feminized dancer who feels at home in a masculine world, Beals is at her best when she’s arguing with Charles and insisting on her own autonomy. She challenges him in a philosophical debate and sneaks away for a dalliance with a handsome suitor, ignoring Regency-era fears that losing her virginity will disqualify her for any lucrative marriage. But rather than praise Eva’s independence, Charles feels emasculated. We realize that he only wants an enlightened companion to serve as a mirror to his own brilliant mind.
Finding Eva in the arms of another man, he decides to finally lock down his bride. After sharing the details of his experiments, he explains that she was created to be given away to the monster now known as Viktor (Brown). But beholding her ethereal beauty, Charles decided to claim her for himself. Threatening to “uncreate” her, he orders Eva to “obey” his plans to forcibly consummate this one-sided relationship. But Viktor reappears in the nick of time, drawn by their psychic connection. Creator and creation fight to the death until Viktor throws Charles off a high balcony.
It’s tempting to view this intrusion as a valiant prince saving a damsel in distress, but Roddam’s conclusion is anything but. After experiencing both cruelty and kindness in the larger world, Viktor has learned that love must be earned and companionship means nothing without consent. Assuming Eva will reject him again, the hulking man prepares to leave, but is surprised when she calls him back to her. Finally understanding their unique connection, Eva excitedly asks to hear his story. Roddam ends the film on this emotional connection, speaking volumes with what he does not show. A gondola hints at a romantic trip to Venice, which would fulfill Viktor’s most treasured dream. But the monstrous couple does not appear in this fantasy, implying that their future together has not yet been decided.
The film may end with Eva choosing Viktor, but we don’t yet know what their relationship will become, and she is under no obligation to fulfill the man’s dreams simply because he saved her from Dr. Frankenstein. No longer defined by her male creator, Eva is free to choose her own destiny.
Here Comes the Bride; Maggie Gyllenhaal’s spin on the Bride of Frankenstein arrives in March. We’re celebrating with a look back at the various iterations of the classic horror icon.
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