Horror Madness, Round One: Frankenstein Vs. Invaders From Mars
See the introduction and full slate here.
Before the Second World War, science gone mad had been the prime culprit in the vast majority of monster features. Dr. Frankenstein raising his creature and Bela Lugosi wreaking murder and mayhem with bizarre medical experiments reflected fears of new technology and mirrored, almost exactly, the real-world horrors being perpetrated on unknowing test subjects. Filmmakers did not represent the madness of their scientists as utter, frothing lunacy, but rather as a kind of theological madness, pride, and hubris toward the established cosmic order.
In the vast majority of creature features of the 1950s, the scientist appears as a highly sympathetic figure. While he (and it is always a he) may have unleashed a menace through efforts to better humanity, his scientific know-how, combined with a little help from allies in the military, puts the genie back in the bottle (or the test tube). Horror historian Andrew Tudor that, while horror films of the 1930s had their occult experts who could destroy the monster and sometimes stop the mad scientist, horror films in the 1950s actually placed the mad scientist in the role of the expert who battles and defeats the threat.
From Monsters in America: Our Historical Obsession with the Hideous and the Haunting, by W. Scott Poole
So what will it be this time? James Whale’s 1931 classic adaptation of Frankenstein:
Or Tobe Hooper’s 1986 remake of Invaders From Mars:
These films might as well be in different worlds. James Whale’s film was made, like our friend Dracula, just a few years into the sound era. Whale made an adaptation, but he must have known that he was creating something startlingly original: something profoundly beautiful, surprising, moving, and shocking even now. Whale was an experienced director of the theater, and had directed two films before Frankenstein, but horror was new to him.
Tobe Hooper, however, was an old hand at the genre by the time he made Invaders From Mars; his resume at that point included two bona-fide horror classics (which we’ll be discussing later in the series). He was, like Whale, making an adaptation, this one of a 1953 sci-fi horror film acknowledged to be one of the best of its type: a goofy, well-made parable of Cold War paranoia. Hooper, however, was not working with a new medium or new techniques. His film is slicker than Whale’s, but is, for its time, less experimental and less interesting.
I’m afraid this is going to be an easy one.
Frankenstein is better than many films of any genre, and one of its most interesting aspects is how slippery its genre status is. It’s horror, of course, but look at this scene. Mel Brooks would parody it decades later, but it already had the deliberate cadence of a joke. Look at how expertly timed the shattering of the glass is, how sublimely silly the skeleton looks as it bounces:
Watch how the building horror of this scene is magnified both by its innocence (the innocence of both the monster and little Maria), and its absurdity. It’s all the more suspenseful, and more frightening, for how predictable and ridiculous it is:
The monster is capable of being frightening, and of being funny, and in the great Boris Karloff’s hands the character becomes tragic. Look at how Karloff manages to convey, without words, an entire character in only the hulk of his shoulders, his unblinking stare, his stiff walk, the movement of his hands:
And see how well Karloff’s deliberately stiff physical presence contrasts with Colin Clive’s quick, crazed energy as Dr. Frankenstein:
Frankenstein is a perfect film. It succeeds on every level: it’s beautifully shot, beautifully edited, the use of sound is sparing and evocative, and Mary Shelley’s story is stripped to its barest, most essential bones. Jack Pierce’s makeup for the monster became rightfully iconic. Above all the performances, most obviously and especially Karloff’s, but Clive’s as well, are wonderful. Even a performer like Michael Mark, in the small but crucial role of Maria’s father, is memorable.
I want to give Invaders From Mars its due, though. It’s not a masterpiece (it’s far from the best film Tobe Hooper ever made,) but it’s well made (again, Hooper was an old horror hand), and there’s a lot going on under the surface. Its paranoia doesn’t have the comforting obviousness of the original: the Cold War was ongoing of course, but the red scare was long past its height. The fear in this remake is vaguer, more elemental: if kids can’t trust adults, or authority, it isn’t an aberration. It’s the normal state of life. This is a film about a child discovering the way the world works.
What both films share is a general sense of unease about the rules of the world, a feeling that barriers and trusted institutions are breaking down. This is made explicit in Invaders From Mars, as young David finds himself unable to trust his teachers, friends, or parents after they have seemingly been replaced by aliens. It’s subtler in Frankenstein, where that fear of societal breakdown comes from the fact that all of the authority figures we see are untrustworthy or easily dispensed with. Frankenstein doesn’t even let us figure out who the heroes or villains are. The doctor is at once a brilliant man in-love with his fiancee, and a power hungry maniac. The monster is innocent and dangerous. The villagers are good people, united in grief, and a bloodthirsty mob.
Invaders From Mars is a well-made film with some interesting ideas. Frankenstein is one of the greatest films ever made, in horror or outside of it. The winner is Frankenstein.