Dr. Frankenstein used a bolt of lightning to bring his creation to life. If you grew up thinking the monster was the problem, this performance may change your sympathy.
At the Rio Theatre on Oct. 16, the San Francisco band Sleepbomb will perform its live score alongside the 1931 Frankenstein, bringing psychedelic rock, electronics, drone and post-doom metal to James Whale’s classic. Presented by the Crepe Place, the Friday screening offers Santa Cruz an early Halloween encounter with a familiar monster, accompanied by a live musical score that may make us reconsider who deserves our compassion.
For Adam Bergeron, owner of the Crepe Place, the film’s emotional center is the creature. For Sleepbomb’s Tim Gotch, there is also an uncomfortable question about his creator: How does the doctor get to walk away from all this?
“I don’t like the redemptive aspect for the doctor,” Gotch says. He takes issue with the ending’s implication that the monster’s apparent death and the doctor’s survival give the audience something to celebrate.
“What does he do to redeem himself?” Gotch asks. “He just spawns the monster and then puts it to death when it becomes inconvenient for him.” That is Gotch’s reading of the movie, and it informs Sleepbomb’s music. He did not spell out exactly how the band handles the ending musically. The Rio audience will have to hear that for themselves. But his objection suggests a score that will ask us to question the doctor’s redemption.
Bergeron comes to the story through his affection for Boris Karloff’s bewildered creature. The scientist Henry Frankenstein assembles a body and animates it, but creating the creature proves easier than helping this innocent being find a place in the world. “It’s the misunderstood monster,” Bergeron says. The creature’s physical strength makes his confusion dangerous. His appearance makes him scary, but Karloff’s performance gets to us. He is painfully human.
“It’s like a child learning,” Bergeron says, “but in the body of this humongous and grotesque monster.” That tension keeps both Bergeron and Sleepbomb’s Gotch returning to the movie. Underneath the laboratory equipment and gathering horror, they both see innocence colliding with fear and disastrous mistakes. Bergeron says, “It’s a wonderful, simple, timeless story.”
Sleepbomb’s Frankenstein score began taking shape early this year. Gotch says the Rio show may be their seventh or eighth performance. The band will appear as a trio: Rob Johnson on drums and percussion, Charlie Hernandez on guitar, and Tim Gotch on bass and synthesizer.
Writing music for existing films is what Sleepbomb does. Gotch says that is essentially their “shtick.”
“First off, we have to like it because we’re gonna end up watching the movie 500 times. And, of course, Frankenstein is Frankenstein. It’s a classic.” He describes the score’s purpose as “recontextualizing,” changing the tone of what we see through what we hear.
Gotch says when the creature ventures outside, “I feel that it’s a moment of revelation for him that he can go outside, and we tried to reflect that in the music.” He describes working with “tension and release,” giving the musicians a way to respond to the creature’s changing experience rather than treating every appearance as a menace.
The experience combines the concentration of watching a movie with the physical presence of a live concert. Bergeron says the weight of Sleepbomb’s bottom-heavy music can deepen a scene’s impact. He describes “waves of sound washing over you,” drawing sharper attention toward the screen. Bergeron says the band plays continuously, with dialogue presented on cards and some original speech still audible. “They did the heavy lifting,” he says of the band. “We’re just the presenter, and we just know a good thing when we see it”—meaning a film people love and a date ahead of Halloween.
After Bergeron began running movie theaters in San Francisco in 2012, music and movie pairings became a regular part of his programming. He reports robust San Francisco movie crowds, including audiences in their 20s and 30s. He thinks Santa Cruz is fertile ground for similar events, with its enthusiasm for Halloween and heavy music.
His wish list, not booked yet, includes Sleepbomb’s Conan the Barbarian presentation and The Big Lebowski with the Bawdy Caste, whose actors enact scenes as the film plays.
For now, there is Frankenstein, a story Bergeron finds touching and Gotch finds troubling. Between them, they offer good reasons to visit the presentation that Bergeron calls “beautiful high art.”
I asked Tim Gotch, “I love the movie, but I haven’t experienced your version. What will that be like?”
“It’ll be like you’ve never seen the movie before,” he says. “It’s a whole new experience.”
Frankenstein with a live score by Sleepbomb screens Friday, Oct. 16, at the Rio Theatre, 1205 Soquel Ave., Santa Cruz. The show starts at 7:30pm. Tickets are $20, available in advance through TicketWeb and the Crepe Place.
