The Queens of Halloween: The Bride of Frankenstein

When you think of the characters depicted as the Queens of Halloween from yesteryear there are a few iconic roles that pop up. With sexy, vampish characters such as Morticia Addams, Lily Munster, Elvira and Vampira, there is one that takes heed as their inspirations - The Bride of Frankenstein.

The iconic horror movie character was born into the 1935 sequel to Universal Picture's horror hit Frankenstein. It is regarded as one of the greatest sequels in history and invokes the characterisation of the Frankenstein's original novellist Mary Shelley to become the monster's bride at the end of the film.

Henry Frankenstein and his mentor work on creating a mate for the monster so that he is not so alone. In a similar vein of the original work of Frankenstein, the bride is created by lightning strikes via a kite, invoking the classic screams of "She's Alive! She's Alive!" Unlike Frankenstein though, the Bride is beautiful and actually ends up screaming and rejecting the monster when he asks her to be his mate.

Played by Elsa Lanchester, the character of the Bride is only included in the film in the last moments of the movie, but she has cemented herself as an iconic of female horror characters. Depicted in bandage-wrapped arms and a long flowing white dress, she is pale and stoic, with a black beehive of hair that is streaked in white in a hairstyle reminiscent of the Egyptian goddess Nefertiti. This hairstyle was designed to be incoperated into Lily Munster's iconic black and white striped hairstyle as well, proving that her style has influenced horror characters for years afterwards.

The Bride of Frankenstein also remains a very popular couples costume for Halloween, and cements herself into the Queens of Halloween hall of fame, despite minimal screen time involved.