Frankenstein (1994)

" F R A N K E N S T E I N " Screenplay by Steph Lady and Frank Darabont From the novel by Mary W. Shelley 2ND REVISED DRAFT February 8, 1993 TITLES UNFOLD IN BLACKNESS as we are lulled by the distant flute-like sounds of a recorder. Overall the effect is mournful and haunting, elegant and serene... ...and we CRASH TO: EXT - BARENTS SEA - NIGHT ...a storm of inconceivable force and violence. Merciless arctic winds whip the sea in a frenzy of thirty-foot swells. This is the last place in God's creation that any human being should be. And yet... ...the prow of a three-masted ship rises massively before us, looming from the darkness and chaos. it crashes upward through a swell and slams back down again, plunging nose- first into the trough. The sails on the forward mast are still deployed. It's insane; in this weather they should be stowed (as is already the case with masts 2 and 3). Hurtling toward us. Rising and falling. Thundering through the swells. And as she sweeps past CAMERA within a seeming hairbreadth, we PAN with the ship and find ourselves... EXT - SHIP - NIGHT ...aboard the "Alexander Nevsky," along for the ride whether we like it or not. There are men all around us, dark screaming FIGURES glimpsed and half-glimpsed, heavy oilskin clothes flapping in the gale. A GROUP OF MEN are in a life-or-death tug of war WALTON PULL, YOU BASTARDS! PULL! Riiiiippp! All eyes turn skyward as the uppermost sail tears loose, the heavy canvas shredding away in huge billowing tatters.