After the tremendous success of Frankenstein, James Whale was reportedly reluctant to take on a sequel for fear of being pigeonholed as a horror director. Universal insisted, so Whale fashioned an entirely new beast. Marked by a camp sensibility far ahead of its time, the film opens with a surprising means of exposition: a conversation between Lord Byron, Percy Shelley and Mary Shelly—the latter played by Elsa Lanchaster, who also embodies the mesmerizingly twitchy bride with the famous shock of hair. The central story revolves around Dr. Frankenstein and a proposition from fellow mad scientist Dr. Pretorius to create a mate for the monster. Neither their sinister endeavor nor the film follows in the same footsteps of 1931; instead, the movie maneuvers through eerie atmospherics, riveting horror, delightful fantasy, stirring pathos and tongue-in-cheek farce with more audacious references just below its pre-Code surface. Like its predecessor, the Bride would inspire countless films in Whale’s strange, new subgenre.