"It's alive!" Shocking in its day and still a genuinely creepy experience, director James Whale's primitive yet enthralling interpretation of Mary Shelley's classic tale of man playing God is the most influential genre movie ever made. Its success kick-started the golden age of horror for Universal Studios and provided inspiration for scores of imitators and successors. Boris Karloff breathes miraculous life into his definitive monster portrayal: the most touching moment is the creature reaching up to grasp a ray of sunlight. A superb cast, imaginative set design and Whale's innovative direction using bizarre camera angles invoke a remarkably tense and melancholy atmosphere, while the creation scene itself is a masterpiece of gothic science gone mad.

Henry Frankenstein pieces together body parts in the hope of bringing a human-like creature to life. The mad scientist’s dreams are shattered by his monstrous creation awakening with rage to a world that hates and fears him.