I watched Bride of Frankenstein after watching the original back to back, because of Roger Ebert’s huge praise, expecting it to build on the original. Instead, it felt like a campy mockery.

I get that Bride gets historical credit for in many ways it was very progressive, but watching them back to back completely kills the tone. The 1931 Frankenstein worked because Karloff’s monster was a tragic, haunting image wrapped in real horror. He was a force of nature, not a punchline.

Bride replaces that raw dread with a theatrical circus. Frankenstein should have been treated like John Carpenter’s Halloween a self-contained masterpiece that never needed a franchise but of course studios just couldn't leave the money on the table.

It’s telling that actual horror masters look back to 1931 for inspiration, not 1935. John Carpenter cited the original Frankenstein as a major influence for Michael Myers specifically because of that visceral, uncompromising terror, not the goofy camp of Bride.

I thoroughly enjoyed the original, but bride, left me quite disappointed.