Frankenstein: The Living Dead

The newest film version of the classic horror story by Mary Shelly

Plot
The film begins in the year 1794. Robert Walton, a failed writer who has set out to explore the North Pole and expand his scientific knowledge in hopes of achieving fame. During the voyage the crew spots a dog sled mastered by a gigantic figure. A few hours later, the crew rescues a nearly frozen and emaciated man staggering across the ice. In the distance, a loud moaning can be heard and as the man starts to recover from his exertion; he sees in Walton the same over-ambitiousness he once had and reveals that his name is Victor Frankenstein and thus begins to tell his tale.

The film then flashes back to Victor's childhood in Geneva. Born into a wealthy family in Geneva, he is encouraged to seek a greater understanding of the world around him through science. He grows up in a safe environment, surrounded by loving family and friends and has two younger brothers, Ernest and William. When he is four years old, his parents adopt Elizabeth Lavenza, an orphan whose mother has just died. Victor has a possessive infatuation with Elizabeth. Years later, His mother dies of scarlet fever weeks before he leaves for the University of Ingolstadt in Germany, a grief-stricken Victor then vows on his mother's grave that he will find a way to conquer death.

At university Victor excels at chemistry and other sciences, however his previous studies with the works of alchemists such as Paracelsus, Albertus Magnus, and Cornelius Agrippa make him unpopular with certain professors, but one named Professor Waldman sees Victor’s determination to cheat death having potential and thus he and his deformed assistant Igor form a partnership with Frankenstein to begin a new scientific theory. Overtime the three come to believe that the only way to cheat death is to create life and thus develop a secret technique that would theoretically animate dead bodies. At this point Professor Waldman tells Victor not to follow through with the theory after he and Igor tested it on a dead rat which had resulted in an "abomination" and thus had to be killed again. A month later, while performing vaccinations, Professor Waldman is killed by a patient who thinks the doctors are trying to poison him. Now driven mad after seeing another person close to him die, Victor breaks into   Professor Waldman's   laboratory, takes the remaining   notes on the experiments and starts using them to work on his own creation. Victor and Igor then begins to spend months in Frankenstein's apartment working on creating a living, breathing creature, giving it dead body parts from various sources, including the body of the murderer, Waldman's own brain, a new leg from   in place of the missing one and a new eye to replace the damaged one. He begins piecing a creature together but is forced to make the creature roughly eight feet tall because of the difficulty in replicating the minute parts of the human body. Finally late one night, Victor and Igor finally give their creation life, but they flee the room in horror at the terrifying creature and renounce their experiments. Hopeless and saddened from the rejection, the monster disappears into the night. Victor becomes ill from the experience but is eventually nursed back to health by Igor. After a four-month recovery, he decides to return home to Geneva, however upon his arrival he discovers that his brother William has been found murdered. William's nanny, Justine, is hanged for the murder based on the discovery of William's locket in her pocket. Victor, though believes her to be innocent, is unfortunately unable to stop the hanging due to a lynching mob breaking into the jail and hanging her before her trial.



Ravaged by his grief and self-reproach, Victor retreats into the mountains to find peace. The monster then approaches him, ignoring his threats and pleading with Victor to hear his own tale. Intelligent and articulate, The Creature tells Victor of his own encounters with people, and how he had become afraid of them and spent a year hiding in the woods, living in the unwitting DeLacey family's barn. Observing the DeLacey family living there and growing fond of them, the monster eventually learned to speak by listening to the DeLaceys while also discovering a lost satchel of books and taught himself to read. When he saw his reflection in a nearby lake, he realized that his physical appearance is hideous compared to the humans he observed. Though he eventually approached the family with hope of becoming their friend, they were frightened by his appearance and drove him away, and then left the residence permanently. Through the journal the creature finds in the coat that he took from Victor's apartment, he learns of the circumstances of his creation and that Victor Frankenstein is responsible. The creature, in a fit of rage, then burns down the family's abandoned cottage and heads to Geneva. The monster concludes his story with a demand that Frankenstein create for him a female companion like himself. He argues that as a living thing, he has a right to happiness and thus promises that if Victor grants his request, he and his mate will vanish into the wilderness of South America uninhabited by man, never to reappear. Fearing for his family, Victor reluctantly agrees and travels to meet with Igor to do his work. Through their travels, Victor suspects that the monster is following him. Working on a second being on the Orkney Islands, he is plagued by premonitions of what his work might wreak, particularly the idea that creating a mate for the creature might lead to the breeding of an entire race of creatures that could plague mankind. He then destroys the unfinished female creature in a fit of panic, the monster witnesses this through the window and confronting Victor, he vows revenge saying, “If you deny me my wedding night, I will be with you on yours!” The creature then murders Igor by breaking his neck and leaves the corpse on an Irish beach, where Victor lands upon leaving the island. Victor is then imprisoned for the Igor’s murder, and becomes seriously ill, suffering another mental breakdown in prison. After being acquitted and with his health renewed, Frankenstein returns home with his father.

Once home Victor and Elizabeth are married and on their wedding night, Victor prepares for a fight with the creature, wrongly believing the creature's vowed revenge was for his own life, Victor asks Elizabeth to retire to her room for the night while he goes looking for "the fiend". While Victor searches the house and grounds, the creature then despite her pleas kills Elizabeth by ripping out her heart. Victor sees the creature at the window who taunts him by pointing at Elizabeth's corpse. Grief-stricken by the deaths of William, Justine, Igor, and now Elizabeth, Victor's father dies from a fatal heart attack.

The story returns to the Arctic Circle. Victor tells Walton that he has been pursuing his creation for months with the intent of killing him. Soon after relating his story, Victor succumbs to pneumonia and dies. After a word with his crew, Walton discovers the creature on his ship, mourning over Frankenstein's body. Walton hears the creature's misguided reasons for his vengeance and expressions of remorse. Frankenstein's death has not brought him peace. Rather, his crimes have increased his misery and alienation, the Creature then vows to kill himself on his own funeral pyre so that no others will ever know of his existence. The film then ends with Walton watching as the creature drifts away on an ice raft that is soon lost in darkness.