In Frankenstein and The Bride of Frankenstein, sound is used as an effect to scare people and create a “spooky” feeling. They used the sounds of a storm with rain and thunder, the sound of footsteps coming up from behind people, and other noises like creaky stairs, floors, and doors. This created that “haunted” or “spooky” feeling that would be used over and over again in horror films for decades. When they used sound effects, it was to emphasize that something was either happening or about to happen.
Many people consider The Bride of Frankenstein to be better than the original Frankenstein. This is because the sequel to Frankenstein had a musical score whereas the original Frankenstein never had one. The fact that the original lacked background music and the sequel had a wonderful music score is the biggest difference between the two movies when it came to sound. In The Bride of Frankenstein, music was used as a way of hinting things to the audience.
Music would become faster and louder right before something big was about to happen and it would slow down and sound sweet in parts that were supposed to show the good, gentle side of the monster. The music also filled space in between scenes and made the film flow better. In The Bride of Frankenstein, there were many mise en scenes that could be easily found. For one thing, there were many religious symbols thrown in all around the movie. There were many crosses, which had been placed inside the houses.
There was a good amount of talking about blasphemy and whether creating this monster was good or bad. One of the biggest issues was about how Dr. Frankenstein seemed to play the role of God. He was creating beings and bringing parts of people back to life. Also, in many scenes, they would use unique camera angles to set up a scene in a particular manner so that the audience would know that something was about to happen. For example, when Elizabeth was in her room, the camera showed the window, Elizabeth, and the reflection of the mirror as the monster began to approach her.
These two films set the standard that would be followed by horror films in many decades to come. They were very similar when it came to the use of sound effects, but very different when it came to music and a musical score. If Frankenstein had had a musical score, it probably would have had much higher ratings and may have been significantly better than its sequels, but The Bride of Frankenstein was given higher ratings for that reason.