Not a totally faithful adaptation of the Mary Shelley book, still extremely important for not just horror movies, but movies as a whole. I thought about coming at this review from the perspective of what 1931's Frankenstein meant for the future of cinema, and how it was still essentially in its infancy and doing anything even close to what Frankenstein did, changing the culture forever and remaining in the zeitgeist even now, almost a hundred years later, is a monumental achievement and should be viewed as such. But that's never really been my jam. Frankenstein might have been great for the time, I don't know, I wasn't there, but I personally only ever found it to be okay. Re-watching it this Halloween was, I think the fourth time I've given it a go, and it's really not as enthralling as people seem to give it credit for. My roommate fell asleep. It's not that it's black and white either, it just doesn't have as clear a philosophical intention as the book, nor as gripping an output as more modern offerings.
Final rating:★★½ - Not quite for me, but I definitely get the appeal.