- The film opens with a long shot of a creepy Gothic castle atop a mountain as a violin plays and lightning strikes.
- After the credits, we pan down a rainy cobblestone street. More lightning strikes and thunderclaps. Then we pan through a window as a clock strikes – midnight, of course.
- Except it strikes 13 times.
- There's a fireplace with a fire burning, we guess to keep the nearby corpse warm.
- Corpse? Yes, there's a coffin on a table, a coffin with the name Baron Von Frankenstein inscribed on the lid.
- It opens. There's a skeleton inside.
- The skeleton is holding a little box, and a man reaches in and takes it.
- But the skeleton has quite a grip and won't let go.
- Finally the unknown hands pry it free, and an iris wipe on the skeleton's face takes us to the next scene.