Six Classic Monster Images Hollywood Gets Dead Wrong, Part Four

Frankenstein

The name is a misnomer in and of itself, since the only name the creature bore in the book was Adam: the doctor's name was Viktor Frankenstein.

Adam doesn't exactly strike fear into the hearts of children, though, so it's been changed to something that sounds like a cross between an herb and a beer mug, but it doesn't take much to beat out "Adam."

It's no mystery why modern interpretations echo a creature who's large, scar-ridden, with bolts in his neck and green skin: again, this goes back to Boris Karloff's Frankenstein of the 1930s, where Shelley's didactic abomination of science for the sake of science was suddenly a super-strong behemoth closer to Leatherface than the original Frankenstein creature.

Shelley's creature could pass for human, though might have a hard time ordering a drink at a bar when he's got jaundice yellow eyes. Aside from advanced endurance and a meta-human capacity to withstand the arctic cold, you could pass Shelly's monster on the street and not know it (just don't bring up Viktor - sore subject).

Let's not forget the laughable and annoying Frankenstein monster from the box office flop, Van Helsing, where the creature smacks more of Jar-jar Binks than the stuff of horror, sporting an out-of-place Swedish accent and cahones equal to the lion in The Wizard of Oz.

Ole Franky from The Monster Squad and The Munsters have this creature of legend bound to his fame with leaden shoes, stiff joints, and a flat head as sure as anything.

All in all, despite the Frankenstein creature's short lifespan, he's been altered as much as a Michael Jackson, and bears a striking resemblance to boot.