The Bride of Frankenstein, also directed by James Whale, is the second installment of this movie series that is loosely based on Mary Shelley's 1818 novel. The movie picks up where Whale's previous film, Frankenstein (1931), left off, and details the life of Henry Frankenstein, and his quest to create a partner for the monster (Pfeiffer). Dr. Pretorious and the monster essentially groom him into thinking that creating a partner for the monster is absolutely necessary (Pfeiffer). Frequent religious symbols in the film subjected it to intense scrutiny by film critics, leading to calls for it to be censored. The film was pulled in countries like China, Japan, and Hungary, with censorship boards citing concerns that the movie loosely referenced necrophilia (Davison, 157). There were also calls to ban the film in places like England for an array of reasons. Tom Johnson, author of Censorsed Screams: The British Ban on Hollywood Horror in the Thirties wrote, "Then, a bombshell was dropped. Less than two weeks before its scheduled release, the most "beloved" of all horror movies was banned. "It was official announced that Bride of Frankenstein will not be publicly screened in Birmingham," reported the Kinematograph Weekly  (September 19)" (Johnson, 123). The sequel to Frankenstein was met with the same fate, and was not well-received by censorship boards as well, each citing different concerns to prevent the screening of the film. 

Citations:

Johnson, Tom. Censored Screams: The British Ban on Hollywood Horror in the Thirties. McFarland & Co., Inc., 2006.

Davison, Carol Margaret, and Marie Mulvey-Roberts. Global Frankenstein. Vol. 1, Palgrave Macmillan, 2018.

Pfeiffer, Lee. "Bride of Frankenstein". Encyclopedia Britannica, 7 Apr. 2020, https://www.britannica.com/topic/Bride-of-Frankenstein. Accessed 15 December 2021.