How to Grow a Monster from Melting Wax, Play Film Backward, and Escape the 1910 Censors with a Psychological Mirror Trick
It’s 3:15 AM. My eyes feel like they’ve been rubbed with coarse sandpaper, the cold pizza on my desk is starting to look back at me, and I am currently watching a giant, hunchbacked figure with wild, frizzled hair and deformed, claw-like fingers slowly coalescing and rising out of a burning cauldron in reverse-trick photography, while a young Victor Frankenstein peeks through a tiny keyhole in sheer, panic-induced terror.
Welcome, my friends, to the dusty, experimental, and historically massive dawn of the cinematic monster movie.
If you’ve never watched the 1910 version of Frankenstein, congratulations: you’ve only seen the iconic 1931 Boris Karloff version and missed out on the first-ever film adaptation of Mary Shelley’s novel. Produced by Thomas Edison‘s Edison Studios, this 12-minute silent short was a highly ambitious project. The director, J. Searle Dawley, had a simple, pioneering, and incredibly clever strategy:
- Don’t worry about expensive, high-tech labs with sparking Tesla coils—instead, have your scientist mix chemicals in a giant brick furnace that looks like a baker’s oven.
- Film the legendary creation scene by building a skeleton-monster out of wax, burning it until it melts into a puddle of goo, and playing that exact footage backward so the monster appears to magically grow flesh and bones out of the fire.
- Turn the dark, tragic ending into a psychological, avant-garde metaphor about the human ego so the early 1910 censors don’t ban your film for being too sacrilegious.
The result? Frankenstein (1910).
The “Plot” (If we can even call it that)
Victor Frankenstein (Augustus Phillips) leaves his home and his sweet fiancée, Elizabeth, to go to college. There, he becomes obsessed with the secrets of life and death, and decides to create the “most perfect human being.”
He locks himself in his private laboratory, mixes some chemicals, and throws them into a giant brick furnace. But instead of a beautiful, perfect human, he accidentally creates a giant, hairy, hunched-over monstrosity (played by Charles Ogle in legendary, self-designed makeup). Horrified by what he has done, Victor faints, and the monster escapes.
Victor returns home to get married and forget his sins, but on his wedding night, the monster returns, entering Elizabeth’s room and demanding his creator’s attention.
Why You Need to Watch This Tonight
- The Mind-Bending “Reverse-Wax” Creation: This is the absolute highlight of the entire 12 minutes. To show the monster being created from raw chemicals, the filmmakers sculpted a skeleton-like monster out of wax and filmed it melting. By running that film backward in the final cut, the monster appears to magically grow bones, muscles, skin, and hair out of a burning cauldron. It is a stunning, 116-year-old piece of practical special effects genius that still looks incredibly creepy and artistic today.
- Charles Ogle’s Wild Monster Makeup: Ogle designed his own makeup for the role, and he looks spectacular. He looks like a cross between a caveman, a rabid dog, and a very stressed-out professor. With his massive, frizzled wig, hunched shoulders, and long, distorted, claw-like fingers, he established the very first visual look of the Frankenstein monster on screen.
- The Avant-Garde “Mirror” Ending: Instead of the monster drowning, burning in a mill, or killing Victor, the 1910 film ends with a bizarre, psychological twist. When the monster looks into a mirror in Victor’s bedroom, his physical form fades away, leaving only his reflection. When Victor walks in, he looks in the mirror and sees the monster’s reflection instead of his own, before the reflection vanishes too. It’s a heavy, artsy metaphor showing that the monster was merely a projection of Victor’s own dark, selfish ego.
- The Wisconsin Closet Discovery: For nearly seventy years, this film was considered completely lost—one of the holy grails of missing silent cinema. Then, in the 1970s, a pristine 35mm nitrate print was discovered in the private collection of a film collector in Wisconsin, allowing the world to finally see the very first horror movie.
The Verdict
Is it a good movie? It is an absolute, fascinating, and historically massive treasure of cinema history. At just 12 minutes long, it packs a surprising amount of gothic atmosphere, pioneering special effects, and early cinema charm into a very brief runtime. It is the perfect, quick late-night watch for anyone who wants to see where the entire genre of cinematic horror was born.
My Rating: 5 out of 5 backward-played melting wax skeletons.
Wanna see the 12-minute silent short that started the entire horror genre?
Turn off your phone, dim the lights, and search for this historic Edison Studios classic on your favorite silent film or archive platform. Because it was made over a century ago, the entire movie is in the public domain, meaning you can watch the very first Frankenstein monster rise from the flames completely free and legally.
