Fox's FRANKENSTEIN To Be Told From Ygor's Perspective

Written By: Ken Hulsey
Source: Reelz Channel

Back in June I noted that Fox had put a new "Frankenstein" movie into high gear in hopes of beating out about a dozen other studios working on a similar project to the box office. In hopes of getting a leg up on the competition Fox hired screenwriter Max Landis to pen the story. At that time there were no details on just how the writer was going to approach such a project that had been done over and over again by so many different entities.

Now it seems that Landis has found his niche, Frankenstein as seen from Ygor's (Dr. Frankenstein's assistant .... as if you didn't know) perspective.

Landis explains," I was having an argument with my friend about when Ygor first appeared in the Frankenstein mythology. The argument got more and more intense. He was convinced that Ygor was in the Universal film. I told him that was a hunchback named Fritz. He didn't believe me and so I did some research. I read the original book. In the original book [Frankenstein is] not a doctor, he's a college dropout. The whole book is spent in fear, fleeing from a smart monster. It's exactly like the Mary Shelley's Frankenstein movie.

Then I was like, "Where's Ygor?"

So I went to the Hammer horror films. First, I watched all of the Hammer horrors, all of the Peter Cushings, all of these different Frankensteins, and there's brilliant stuff in there. Some of which, I was like, "Wait a minute. This is part of the zeitgeist Frankenstein myth. They think this is stuff from the 1930s movie."

So I was like, "Where's Ygor?"

So I watched all of the original Frankensteins, all of the Universal Frankensteins. I found Ygor. He's in the third Frankenstein film. He's a broke-neck blacksmith played by Bela Lugosi, who manipulates the monster for his own means. He's not a hunchback and he's not Frankenstein's assistant. But that can't be right! Everyone knows Frankenstein's assistant is Ygor. ... I began to pick apart our knowledge of Frankenstein and discovered that the public's idea of [the Frankenstein] myth comes from a million different places. ... I became committed to recontexturizing it all so that it all works in one story. Yeah, it's a period piece. Yes, it's from Ygor's perspective. But, man it's cool."

Now if only Fox could resurrect Bela Lugosi to play the part .... now that would be cool!