Mad Scientists

When someone first thinks of a gothic horror, the first thing that comes to mind, probably, is a movie like Frankenstein.  This is because when gothic films first started to become popular, most of the films were about mad scientists.  The first portion of my gothic horror class, we talked about the mad scientists and the monsters that are created.  We watched films like Island of Lost Souls, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde,  Re-Animator, and The Black Cat.  Each of these films have the main protagonist as a mad scientist.  The article, "Skin Shows: Gothic Horror and the Technology of Monsters," explained that when watching these mad scientists films, the spectator always looked at the monster to be the character that was corrupt and that brought fear into the film.  I want to bring up the debate that, yes the monster is corrupt, but in someways, the scientist who creates these monsters, is almost, if not even more corrupt than the monster that they create.

The way I look at it is, these scientists do anything they can to create this "art" or "experiment" just to prove people wrong, and to show the world how amazing science is, and science can do anything.  The scientists will do anything they possibly can to prove this to people.  They are willing to create these "monsters" even though they know it's not right.  For example, in Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Dr. Jekyll creates Mr. Hyde (his evil side) and knows the constant rage that Hyde feels, yet, cannot stop thinking about Hyde, and needs to recreate Hyde again because his urge is to large.  This shows corruption because even though Dr. Jekyll knows that it's not right to have Hyde around because it puts people in danger, he does it anyways to benefit his needs and himself.  In Island of Lost Souls, Dr. Moreau is creating humans out of animals, once he sees that the humanistic feelings and love are occurring, he does everything in his power to make sure that Lota stays with Parker.  He wants to see if she can eventually become fully human after being a panther.  Once Dr. Moreau sees that it may not go as he planned, it almost seems as if he ignores it, in the hopes that the humanist qualities will make them go away.  Once Parker tries to leave, Dr. Moreau is not afraid to kill anyone or hurt anyone in order to see his experiment continue and flourish.  This is corrupt because he will literally not let anyone or anything bother Lota and Parker in the hopes that his experiment might actually be working.  He is putting himself, and his science in front of everybody else, no matter what the situation is.