What Are The Elements Of Fear In Young Frankenstein

In the horror film, Young Frankenstein, director Mel Brooks uses several elements of horror to keep the viewer engaged in the movie, as well as to convey varying degrees of fear in an otherwise humorous movie. Within the first five minutes, one of the elements, the unexpected, is employed in the form of an ever-classic jump scare and is repeated several more times throughout. Each of these scenes, often coupled with an equally jarring noise, keep the audience tense and anxious as they never know when a jump scare may occur. The viewers are startled for only a fraction of a second, but that split second still causes their imaginations run wild with dozens of scenarios conditioned into the human mind by previous horror movies.

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Due to their unanticipated nature, jump scares, and other unexpected elements just like it, cause the audience’s thoughts to work against them until the real horror is revealed.

Frankenstein’s monster itself employs several different elements of horror: size, unstoppability, unbelievability, the unknown and revulsion.

Two elements of horror seen in the monster are unbelievability and the unknown. By creating a monster in a way that defies science, Dr. Frankenstein goes against all previous evidence that life cannot be reanimated from dead tissue, a belief he himself preached up until he discovered the studies of his grandfather. This causes the viewer to question whether or not this process could really be performed in real life, causing people to essentially become immortal, and if dead beings can be reanimated, other undead monsters like vampires or zombies have an equal chance of also

No one knows how the monster will act and react in certain situations, or what dangers it may pose to the public. If no one knows how to control the monster, there is a very slim chance of defeating a scientifically impossible being.

With regard to the monster, the elements of size and unstoppability both relate to each other. The monster’s sheer height and muscle size cause it to tower over everyone and gives it an obvious strength advantage over other characters, as seen when he begins to strangle the doctor after being triggered by Igor’s match. It takes a sedative administered by Inga to cause it to pass out, and even then, the doctor can barely support the collapsed monster on his own. With this being said, physical limitations do little-to-nothing to hold back the enormous power within the monster. Once angry enough, it can tear bolted restraints from a laboratory table, and chains from its limbs and a neck collar. On their own, men like Dr. Frankenstein, and even police officers, cannot stop it from choking and suffocating them. Subconsciously knowing that there is no way anyone could be able to defeat the monster with pure strength can cause even the strongest and most masculine viewers to fear the existence of such a being and to fear for the lives of the on-screen