Mary Shelley’s novel Frankenstein has been a constant source of inspiration to the film world since people began making movies. Adaptations and re-imaginings litter cinema history and each new perspective presents its own interpretation of Shelley’s text. Writer and director Bomani J. Story’s The Angry Black Girl and Her Monster offers an urban spin of the Gothic tale.
Vicaria (Laya DeLeon Hayes) is a young woman with a purpose. After living with countless childhood tragedies, which include the death of her mother and brother, Vicaria has committed her life to the achievement of one singular goal: curing death. Rather than see death as inevitable, Vicaria has a theory that it is merely another disease, and as such it can be cured. Her ambition is ridiculed by her science teacher, forcing Vicaria to pursue her research in secret. As in any good Frankenstein story, Vicaria’s experiments prove successful, but the results are far from what she was hoping.
Transplanting the Shelley story to an urban setting doesn’t add much to the lineage of the tale, primarily because, outside of Vicaria’s reanimation fantasies, The Angry Black Girl and Her Monster has little in common with the source material. Story merely uses the concept of a ‘Modern Prometheus’ as a jumping off point. His focus is in the exploration of the plight of those in the ghetto. Vacaria has grown up surrounded by gang violence, drug dealers, addiction, and bereavement. When your beginnings are so bleak, it’s hard to see a way out. In conquering death Vacaria is forging a new path out of darkness, and casting hope for not only her, but for those growing up after her. Once her ‘monster’ is reborn it begins a clear-out of the undesirables in the neighbourhood, purging the bad elements and creating the peaceful environment that Vicaria yearns for.
The bloodshed is too much for Vicaria however. Whilst in theory she wants to punish those that have caused, in reality, her grounding as a woman of medicine stirs conflicting feelings. Vicaria must then try and prevent her monster inflicting further death, her theoretical thesis now transposed to real-world action. Laya DeLeon Hayes does great work as Vicaria, conveying the complexities of her emotions as she has to fight her creation and those responsible for her misery. It wouldn’t be a Frankenstein style story without pathos and heartbreak and both are very present here. As interesting as the first and final acts are however; the middle portion of the narrative meanders. For a time, it is as if the story hits pause and its momentum falters.
A modern day re-imagining of Shelly’s modern Prometheus, The Angry Black Girl and Her Monster is not perfect, but does possess plenty of provocative explorations of the source material.
The Angry Black Girl and Her Monster
Summary
Bomani J. Story reanimates Mary Shelley’s source with a modern urban twist. The result is slightly mixed due to a meandering middle, but the innovation of its adaptation of the original text deserves merit.
The Angry Black Girl and Her Monster was reviewed at SXSW.
