Rope has many symbolic meanings, from bondage, flogging, and death (the noose) to a means of escape or survival. In horror, ropes are most often used as a form of bondage. This symbolism has been used since the dawn of horror cinema and retains symbolic importance today.
In the opening of James Whale's Frankenstein (1931), one of the first shots is a pair of hands pulling on a rope; hands lowering a coffin before grave robbers Dr. Frankenstein and his assistant pull it back up in front of a statue of the Grim Reaper. Later in the opening sequence, they cut a condemned man down from the rope of a gallows but are disappointed that they’ll need a different brain as his neck was severed.
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