Son of Frankenstein (1939)

Baron Wolf von Frankenstein, son of Henry Frankenstein, relocates his wife Elsa and their young son Peter to the family castle. Wolf wants to redeem his father’s reputation but finds this will be more difficult than he thought after he encounters hostility from the villagers, who resent him for the destruction his father’s monster wreaked years ago. Wolf’s only other friend is the local police Inspector Krogh, who wears an artificial arm after his real arm was ripped out in a childhood encounter with the monster. While investigating his father’s castle, Wolf meets Ygor, a demented blacksmith who survived being hanged for graverobbing and has a deformed neck as a result. Wolf finds the monster’s comatose body in the crypt where his grandfather and father were buried; his father’s sarcophagus bears the phrase “Heinrich von Frankenstein: Maker of Monsters” written in chalk. He decides to revive the monster to prove his father was correct and to restore honor to his family. Wolf uses a torch to scratch out the word “Monsters” on the casket and write “Men” beneath it.

The monster is revived but it only responds to Ygor’s commands and commits a series of murders, the victims of which were jurors at Ygor’s trial. Wolf discovers this and confronts, shoots and apparently kills Ygor. The monster abducts Wolf’s son as revenge but cannot bring himself to kill the child.