Why so much hype?

That was an excellent one.

It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

This short has a place in film history, due to the fact that it is the first filmed version of the FRANKENSTEIN story. The piece will be familiar to any horror fan, with the creator making his creature which then terrorises lover Elizabeth.The acting is over the top and the film is crudely simple, yet it holds a certain charm due to the period in which it was made. Although the special effects are extremely primitive, there is a spooky moment of a flesh-covered skeleton waving at Frankenstein out of a creation bath.The Monster is a strange looking beast, played in a stilted manner typical of the era by Charles Ogle, and its appearance is unlike any other screen monster, the bushy hair and dirty clothing a total contrast to Karloff's black-clad and deathly pale figure. Although this film is too short to summon up anything other than some ghastly imagery and a few moments of atmosphere, it's a must for horror fans interested in the evolution of the genre.

From Thomas Edison's production studio and directed by J Searle Dawley, this adaptation of Frankenstein is regarded as the first American horror film.It is a silent short film that is only about 13 minutes along and some of the narrative conveyed by insert cards in the film which includes passages from Mary Shelley's novel.Frankenstein creates his monster by use of a portion and the coming together of the monster is still effective and I can imagine the monster lumbering around would had scared audiences at the time.The film is grainy in places and of course it does not all make sense with some choppy editing but we are talking early cinema here which was still in an experimental phase. The film was considered lost for many years as it was in the hands of a private collector.

They could have come up with something more like book when made this. They did not have do something so confusing and hard to follow. One good thing I can say about this movie. If it had not been made. And been the s.u.k.s.e.s that it was the 1931 remake would never have been made. But when I think about. This movie is pooh pooh. Don't see it. Pooh pooh. pooh pooh, pooh pooh. pooh pooh. Don't see it don't see it don't see it don't see it. The book was easy to follow so the movie should have been easy to follow. But it was not. Pooh pooh pooh pooh pooh pooh. Don't see it. It is not scary. It is pooh. The Book is scary and the 1931 remake is scary.

Today both film fans and aficionados of cinema consider the director to be the so called author of a movie . Interesting to note that when a film is promoted a star name director is heavily promoted as in " A film by Steven Spielberg / Martin Scorsese / James Cameron etc etc " . Much of this comes from the French New Wave era where the director was considered to be the artistic driving force behind a movie conveniently forgetting all about the hard work the screenwriter has in the production . Perhaps the theory of the director being the author of the film would be better applied to the birth of cinema where the likes of Georges Melies and the Lumiere brothers where the magical creativity of a director made a movie work ? Add J. Searle Dawley's 1910 version of FRANKENSTEIN to this body of work Like many movies from this period there is a very strong element of literal movie magic brought in to play . Frankenstein tries to create a perfect human and the audience see a skeletal figure gradually becoming more and more formed . It's difficult to understand how the audience would have reacted to this in 1910 but even today the creation of the monster isn't totally unimpressive though sharp eyed viewers will notice the smoke in the chamber seems to flow in to the creation which indicates the trick is done via stop frame animation and the film being played backwardsUnfortunately the screen writing rule of " Show don't tell " seems to remain undiscovered from this period . We're told via card captions that Frankenstein hasn't created a perfect human but " The evil in his mind has made a monster " which is strange because Frankenstein has done nothing evil on screen at this point , nor does he do anything evil in the remainder of the runtime . Strangely too that the monster doesn't do anything monstrous apart from turning up at his creator's wedding day uninvited . Supposedly this ties in with Mary Shelley's subtext that God's law has been broken because a mere human has created life out of death ? There's also a perplexing end where the monster effectively disappears in to thin air after seeing his reflection in the mirror You have to understand however that in 1910 we're a very long way from The Classic Hollywood period when narrative storytelling and all its beauty such as structure , characterisation and of course dialogue hadn't been considered . In the silent period directors were something along the lines of magicians and J Searle Dawley does bring magic to the cinematic table in a film that is strangely compelling despite the flaws in the narrative