Yorgos Lanthimos’ POOR THINGS is many things, among them a whimsical retelling of the story of Frankenstein’s monster as codified in James Whale’s iconic 1930s classics FRANKENSTEIN and BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN. But there’s a lot of other stuff animating POOR THINGS’ surface pleasures and just-below-the-surface ideas, which we parse before moving into Connections to compare these three films’ depictions of playing God and twisted parent-child relationships; mad science and the mad scientists who practice it; and stylized, unnatural versions of reality as perceived by stylized, unnatural creatures. And in Your Next Picture Show we give a brief nod to two other POOR THINGS pairing possibilities, Francois Truffaut’s THE WILD CHILD and Werner Herzog’s THE ENIGMA OF KASPAR HAUSER.  Please share your comments, thoughts, and questions about FRANKENSTEIN, BRIDE OF, POOR THINGS or anything else in the world of film, by sending an email to [email protected], or leaving a short voicemail at (773) 234-9730. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices