Spooky Ventures and Tales of Wonder and Dread Teamed Up To Celebrate Frankenstein Day
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POPLAR GROVE, Ill. - illiNews -- Spooky Ventures and Tales of Wonder and Dread teamed up to celebrate one of the most popular monsters of all time on August 30^th. That date is recognized as Frankenstein Day. In honor of the occasion. Spooky Ventures unleashed its new, pseudo-vintage, silent short film adaptation of "Frankenstein," while Tales of Wonder and Dread published a new edition of the original novel augmented with pictures from that short film.

National Frankenstein Day was established to celebrate the impact of Mary Shelley's monstrous creation. It was originally celebrated on the final Saturday of October, but was later moved to August 30^th.

Mary Shelley's novel "Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus" was published on January 1^st, 1818. It tells the tale of Dr. Victor Frankenstein, a man obsessed with creating a living being from parts scavenged from corpses. Interestingly, over the centuries, people have gotten into the habit of calling his creation "Frankenstein," but the being was not given a name in the novel.

Tales of Wonder and Dread Publishing was founded in 2018. The focus of the imprint is on science fiction (wonder) and horror (dread), but they also publish books that are more just "spooky," like a series of photo books about Rockford, Illinois cemeteries. In nearly eight years they have published over 60 books, included several series like "Spooky Rockford," "Spooky Stateline" and "Spooky Berwyn," which combine both fiction and non-fiction tales showcasing stories centered on specific areas.

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Spooky Ventures began in 2019. Video content has been a central focus from the beginning, but Spooky Ventures also sells a line of branded merchandise. As the operation has evolved, eventually a horror hosting show emerged. Then in 2025 Spooky Ventures began producing films.

The Spooky Ventures contribution to the Frankenstein Day is a pseudo-vintage silent short film adaptation of Frankenstein. It was released on both the Spooky Ventures YouTube channel and its Facebook page on the morning of August 30^th. It's the latest in a series of pseudo-vintage silent short films from Spooky Ventures. The two main actors in the short are Arthur Vinke as Victor Frankenstein and Andrew Laabs as the creature.

That same morning, Tales of Wonder and Dread released a new edition of Mary Shelley's original novel "Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus." While the text it unchanged from the original, it is augmented with a number of screen shots from the Spooky Ventures film version.

The book is available in paperback and hardcover at lulu.com/spotlight/strangesound. The short film was released on YouTube @SpookyVentures and on Facebook at facebook.com/SpookyVentures.