Frankenstein's Monster Reviews

Played by: Boris Karloff

Film(s): Bride Of Frankenstein (1935), Frankenstein (1931)

The first and best version of Dr. Frankenstein's (well, really, Mary Shelley's) cobbled-together creation, James Whale's classic made a jobbing British character actor into a huge star. His numerous appearances on this list indicate that he was able to forge a career outside the nuts and bolts of the Monster, but William Henry Pratt - sorry, Boris Karloff - will always be inextricably linked with his lumbering creation. Karloff's trick was not just to create a visual template that defines the Monster to this day, but to see the creature as much more than a creature, to imbue it with a genuine longing to be whole again, to be human, to have a friend, to have a soul. These moments of calm - smoking with the blind hermit, or throwing stones into a lake with a young girl - make the tragedy of the inevitable storm all the greater.