The Bride! and 6 Classic Monster Adaptations Better than their Source Material
During the 1930s, Universal became known for its monster movies. The studio helped establish some of the iconic classic monsters, from Dracula and Frankenstein’s Monster to the Mummy and the Wolf Man. Whilst these depictions are a key part of movie monster history, in the intervening years, there have been many re-imaginings of all of these key characters, and due to fresh ideas, bigger budgets, and better effects, sometimes these newer monster adaptations are better than their source material.
Whether it be a slight tweak to the story or a complete overhaul, these newer movies pay respect to their lineage whilst giving the audience something new to think about. We’ve taken a look at the Invisible Man, Dracula, the Mummy, the Wolf Man, the Creature from the Black Lagoon, Frankenstein, and his Bride, and found examples of modern adaptations that might just be better than the originals.
Directed by Maggie Gyllenhaal, The Bride! places Frankenstein’s bride at the centre of her own story. This in itself already makes it superior to the first outing of the character, who appeared in only a couple of scenes in Bride of Frankenstein. Although named in the title, much of the story focused once more on Doctor Frankenstein and his male creation, now, though it is Frankenstein, or Frank, that moves to the sidelines as the Bride steps into the spotlight.
A fun riff on Bonnie and Clyde, The Bride! is likely to upset as many people as it delights. In telling the story of the Bride, Gyllenhaal is unafraid to get weird, and although the tonal swings take a little time to settle into, once they land, it is full steam ahead. The Bride! explores female body autonomy and identity whilst wearing a wicked whiplash smile upon its face. Never has a female ‘monster’ been more Riot Girl and endearing. The Bride! blows Bride of Frankenstein out of the water.
Mary Shelley’s classic literary tale, Frankenstein, has been adapted many times for the big screen, most recently by Guillermo del Toro, whose version of Frankenstein earned several Academy Award nominations. As great as del Toro’s film is, it does stick very faithfully to the source material, and what makes adaptations most fun is when they deviate in some new or interesting way.
Larry Fessenden’s Depraved is one such reworking of the Frankenstein story. Set in modern times, Depraved follows a former combat doctor, Henry, who is trying to find a way to save the lives of frontline soldiers by cheating death. The result of his hard work is Adam, but when faced with his wide-eyed and childlike creation, Henry realises that he has accidentally become a father figure, and desperately tries to shirk the responsibility.
What makes Depraved interesting, outside of its modern setting, is that it skips over all of the resurrection experimentation. The film instead opens with the death of Adam’s brain donor, and fully starts as Adam himself wakes up. Depraved then spends the bulk of its time with Adam as he explores the foreign world around him, and has his innocence tainted by those around Henry, before morphing into a visceral display of anger. Director Larry Fessenden is a lover of all movie monsters and also has vampire movie Habit and werewolf film Blackout in his arsenal. His love of Frankenstein shines in Depraved. During the finale, Adam’s design features nods to so many famous screen creatures that have come before, and it is this reverence that really helps sell this as a great reimagining of Shelley’s tale.
Leigh Whannell’s The Invisible Man took the character from the Universal classic and made him truly monstrous. In the original films, he was portrayed as either an anti-hero or villain, but mainly a man driven mad by his scientific experiment. For the 2020 version, Whannell completely unpicked the story, twisting the character into the essence of toxic masculinity as abusive husband Adrian. The film opens with his tormented wife, Cecilia, finally escaping him. Her decision to leave allegedly causes Adrian to kill himself, but Cecilia becomes convinced that not only is he still alive, but that he’s also using some newly developed tech to mask himself and continue his agenda of abuse.
The techsuit angle is the perfect way to modernise The Invisible Man, and one that makes more sense than simply drinking a potion. Whannell also creates some exceptional moments of tension, shooting negative space in such a way that it feels oppressive and sentient, which makes it easy for the audience to side with Cecilia’s apparent delusions. The Invisible Man also features one of the best WTF just happened sequences in recent history. No spoilers, but pay close attention during the restaurant scene.
The original The Mummy film, although popular, never quite reached the heights of its peers. Something about an ancient Egyptian being brought back to life didn’t properly gel with the horror crowd. Then, in 1999, Stephen Sommers had the idea to push the horror elements to the back and instead make his version of The Mummy an action-adventure movie. The result was a film that made household names out of Brendan Fraser and Rachel Weisz, and a lot of money at the box office. The Mummy even managed to hold its own against the first Star Wars prequel, Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace, with both movies in cinemas at the same time.
Set in Cairo during the year 1926, The Mummy follows the escapades of treasure hunter Rick O’Connell, librarian Evelyn, and her brother Jonathan as they track down the mythic Hamunaptra. During their adventure, they uncover the Book of the Dead. When it is unwisely read, it summons forth Imhotep, an ancient Egyptian priest driven by his need to destroy everyone and everything. As well as being a loud and fun summer popcorn movie, The Mummy still managed to generate a few scares; an early sequence featuring some burrowing scarabs is utterly sickening.
Of all the Universal classic monsters, it is The Creature from the Black Lagoon that has had the fewest adaptations. The story, which sees a research team cross paths with an aquatic humanoid Gill Man, is a hard one to replicate, and typically needs a reasonable amount of money to do the creature justice. James Wan has been rumoured for years to be working on his own update of the Universal original, but until that comes to pass, audiences can enjoy Guillermo del Toro’s fantastic The Shape of Water.
A film that was nominated for 14 Academy Awards, and went on to win four, including the highly coveted Best Director and Best Picture. It does not take long to understand the accolades that the movie received, as The Shape of Water is simply stunning. The story tells of a mute cleaner who falls in love with the amphibious man locked up in the facility in which she works. Their love story is bittersweet, devastatingly romantic, and just a touch NSFW, granting it the ability to appeal to a wide variety of viewers.
On the surface, Francis Ford Coppola’s Bram Stoker’s Dracula feels like a very faithful adaptation of the original text. The truth is that whilst most of the key plot points in the novel are present, his version shifts the source material into a sweeping Gothic romance. For many, Coppola’s film is as close as they come to reading Stoker’s book, and so assume that it is a love story. In reality, the Dracula of the book is nowhere near as charming or lovelorn as Gary Oldman’s portrayal. Morphing the story into an aching tale of yearning across the centuries is a bold and smart move, as it makes Dracula more interesting than merely a two-dimensional monster.
As a movie, Bram Stoker’s Dracula is beautiful to look at; the sets and costuming conjure up the Victorian era in which the story unfolds. It is also unafraid to splatter blood and viscera across the screen when needed, and has one of the most sinister portrayals of Mina Harker’s poor best friend, Lucy. The image of a newly vampiric Lucy carrying a child back to her crypt chamber is chilling.
The film also features a stacked cast including Anthony Hopkins, Richard E. Grant, Winona Ryder, and Keanu Reeves. Coppola committed to authenticity by casting a real priest to marry Ryder’s Mina to Reeves’ Jonathan, to the point that they may actually be legally wed. Less authentic is Reeves’ butchering of the British accent with his pronunciation of the country Budapest, but somehow even this can’t taint this near-perfect adaptation.
Having proved himself very capable of reinventing a Universal monster, Leigh Whannell was let loose with another of their icons - the Wolf Man. The original werewolf story, The Wolf Man, has inspired countless werewolf movies over the years, with Whannell’s version just one of the most recent. His variant makes some intriguing decisions, and whilst for many it was a step too far, it is actually worth another look.
Starring Julia Garner and Christopher Abbott, Wolf Man forgoes the typical long timeline of a werewolf story and sees Abbott’s Blake go from gentle father to hideous beast overnight. Treating the affliction as a disease is nothing new, but the expedited timeline is, and the urgency ups the stakes, especially as Blake’s wife and child are trapped in the wilderness with him. Whannell also had a lot of fun playing around with Blake’s transformation, placing the audience in his soundscape in places, leading to a fun scene involving an excessively loud spider, and later the demonstration of Blake losing his grasp on human language.
The film was originally meant to have Ryan Gosling playing the Blake character, but he left due to other commitments. Fortunately, Abbott has proven himself time and again as being the go-to guy for a stressed and sweaty character having the day from hell, and so he fits into Blake’s skin beautifully.
