After Frankenstein: Hell Revisited

Simon Helder was Baron Frankenstein’s last assistant.

As chronicled in Frankenstein and the Monster from Hell (1974), the young surgeon began his monster-making career with the same arrogant confidence that had guided his mentor, only to realize that the Baron’s work was forged in madness and doomed to disaster.

In the closing moments of the film — the last of Hammer Films’ Frankenstein series — Helder and the mute girl, Sarah, observe in sad, silent dismay as the elderly Frankenstein, indifferent to the horrors he has provoked, busily sweeps up the debris of his smashed laboratory, prattling on about his next experiment. Madness is the inevitable end to the Baron’s long, tragic story.

Now, nearly forty years on, actor Shane Briant returns to the part of Simon Helder in a six-minute YouTube video called After Frankenstein. The short is actually a dramatic reading in which Briant, as Helder, reveals what immediately followed the events in Frankenstein and the Monster from Hell, and Helder’s life since then.

It’s a real treat seeing Briant, in fine form, revisiting the Hammer classic. Here’s After Frankenstein…

Shane Briant, now settled in Australia, is also a novelist. He is currently writing a sequel to his acclaimed horror novel, Worst Nightmares.

After Frankenstein writer Robert Kenchington is the editor of The Official Shane Briant Tribute Site, and author of the illustrated biography, Shane Briant: A Talent for Terror.

Related:
Twilight of the Goths: Frankenstein and the Monster from Hell