Drunk History of Frankenstein brought to life by Will Ferrell, Seth Rogen and Evan Rachel Wood

What the history books might have told you in high school was that Frankenstein was electrified into being in a story Mary Shelley told during a killer thunderstorm. What they probably left out was that the monster emerged from a haze of opium.

Comedy Central’s Drunk History just got darker, and maybe a little drunker, kicking off its new season with Are You Afraid of the Drunk? The story of how Frankenstein was really born has been submitted for approval to the Midnight Society. No, really — the story of how Mary Shelley’s short story came to life from an opium high is told around a campfire that no one is actually seen lighting, just with beer.

Sound legit enough for an adults-only version of Are You Afraid of the Dark?, right?

Mary Shelley’s iconic horror novel, which would eventually morph into one of the Universal Monsters and inspire characters like Lurch and Herman Munster, really did crawl out of a nightmare she had after way too much wine and laudanum (liquid opium) at Lord Byron’s Lake Geneva Estate in the summer of 1816.

Imagine a bunch of already drunk poets doing shots of liquid opium in an already creepy mansion while an apocalyptic thunderstorm was raging outside. No wonder Percy Shelley jumped up screaming that demonic eyes were staring at him.

Shelley (Evan Rachel Wood) was already high enough when she overheard Percy Shelley (Elijah Wood with the creepiest 19th century mustache ever) wondering aloud about whether galvanism actually worked. You know, using electricity on dead animals to bring them back to life. Sound familiar?

The Drunk Society’s version of the story makes it even more bizarre than it actually is. Ferrell’s monster is what you’d get if you sewed an abomination together from random parts of Ozzy Osbourne and Marilyn Manson. Put Rogen's Dr. Frankenstein on electrocution duty, and you can probably already see how this is going to go down even before watching the spectacle.

Watch the entire episode right here anyway, though. Just try and stay sober.

(via io9)