One of the greatest parts of The Halloween Season is the chance to revel in the great catalog of horror movies. It’s a good time to talk to each other, asking just what makes them squirm and become excited as we descend into madness and terror. It’s a genre as old as time, capturing humans at their most primal reacting to something surreal, sometimes personal, but often profound. It’s the type of experience that makes this time so delightful, worthy of catering marathons to film franchises and imagining how you’d write your own monster movie. But, if you had to ask me… my favorite corner of horror isn’t anything recent. While I will love a good scare no matter where it is, mine is rooted in something classical.
If you stick around me long enough, you’ll find that I’m likely to recommend a whole ton of Universal Horror titles for those who want great classic cinema. It was a brilliant piece of marketing, where one studio cornered the market of horror by making these big-budgeted takes on characters that ranged from classic literature to their own strange concoctions. I promise you that without the likes of Bela Lugosi, Boris Karloff, and Lon Chaney (Jr. and Sr.), our modern interpretation of monsters would be very different. These are the figures who found ways to add deeper humanity to them, making them staples in our culture that you’ll recognize even if you’ve never seen a horror movie outside of Tim Burton.
I suppose that deep down I love the art of the experience, where these monsters are misunderstood and are given these classically rich performances that allow them to feel organic and real. As much as I can understand how films like Dracula (1931) can be VISUALLY scary, I am not always sure how audiences could find that on a story level. Maybe it’s the idea that these monsters have humanity, worthy of our sympathies. Maybe it’s that these quasi-psychopaths exist among us, or that we ourselves could be turning into a wolfman, mummy, or vampire. Then again, what makes these films stand-out is how accomplished they are as character studies, becoming the best dramas of the era.
For this list, I have decided to explore the best of the franchise on a few grounds. For starters, I want to only focus on horror movies that have been officially included under the Universal Horror banner, which started in the late 1920s and continued until the mid-1950s. To provide diversity, I am also choosing to focus on one film per character because, otherwise, a few things would happen: 1.) The Top 2 are Frankenstein movies; and 2.) The Top 3 are James Whale-directed movies (4 if I included The Old Dark House (1932)). While this means that it will exclude the excellent work of the Abbott and Costello spin-off franchise, I hope this is a good starting point for those who like a good black-and-white scare. Who knows. If this goes over well, I may share even more.
1. Frankenstein (1931)
The amount of ink that I have spilled over this James Whale adaptation more than explains why it ranks at the top of this list. As an adaptation of Mary Shelley’s “The Modern Prometheus,” it may lack certain accuracy. Still, you get the traces of Whale the theater director here as he brings every tactic to the film. It has a dry campiness, even featuring a prelude of a theater stage-hand warning audiences that this will be scary. The sets have this daunting, cold structure with shadows overwhelming the hallways. The experiments feel dangerous and the mere sight of The Monster’s giant feet is enough to make you fear what comes next. A lot of credit should be owed to Colin Clive, who embodies the right level of madness as he proudly declares “It’s alive!”
Boris Karloff gives one of the most essential cinematic performances in history without speaking a single line, uttering like a childlike mute who observes with this innocence. He’s a character whose morality is so ambiguous, I could argue that everything in the third act is built off of a tragic misunderstanding. This is a cautionary story of playing God, reanimating corpses, and believing that you can be a creator. Without any deeper understanding, you’re doomed to a society that will never appreciate your gifts. Your creation will die in a blaze (for now, anyway), and it becomes as tragic for Dr. Frankenstein as it is The Monster.
Leave it to Whale to create one of the most fun tongue-in-cheek films of the bunch. Even if many prefer its wilder sequel Bride of Frankenstein (1935), there’s still enough here that balances horror and humor with all of these provocative ideas, capturing a more direct fear of audiences. The fact that the film starts by not even revealing who plays The Monster shows how much he wanted to leave you in suspense, making you unsure of everything that comes. This set the template for what all monster movies should be, playing with expectations while raising every technical aspect into an art form. This is more than a wicked poster. It’s a film that reshaped horror forever into something more complex and dramatic.
2. The Invisible Man (1933)
Following the box office phenomenon of Frankenstein, Whale turned his attention to another horror character in H.G. Wells’ “The Invisible Man.” While one can argue that this stands to be the most dated of the group (how do you make a man look invisible?), it ends up being Whale’s greatest technical achievement. It is because of how convincingly he pulls off the practical effects that you’re taken into this world, seeing what isn’t there. As he scatters carts and crowds into chaos, the audience is left in awe of how he created the sight. By the time that he unwraps his bandaged head, revealing the nothingness underneath, there is such a deep understanding of this character. Without seeing a single expression on their face, we care for him and want to see him become visible.
It helps that Claude Raines as an actor was able to bring him to life with campy elocution that reveled in madness. At times you understand why he took so much joy in these actions, though it becomes an even sadder tale. It’s one that once again finds horror in connecting with its audience, realizing that being invisible limits their ability to be present in other people’s lives. They won’t even know you’re there. Raines’ has this way of making you feel the woe of his loneliness, making one of the best existential dramas that Universal Horror ever released.
Despite this excellent film, it’s also one of the most interesting franchises to stem from the group and most evident of why Whale was leagues ahead of every other director (besides Tod Browning). The Invisible Man legacy would feature everything from dull rehashes to romantic comedies to World War II espionage thrillers. It’s clear how limited this story’s appeal was, even if everyone at times felt invisible. Still, if one wants to feel like they’re staring into nothingness and experiencing some new level of Rorschach Test, one needs to start at the beginning, to understand how perfectly this film captures being misunderstood and alone, even when you’re surrounded by a crowd just trying to get through the day.
3. The Man Who Laughs (1928)
Before Universal Horror really became a recognizable franchise, the studio made a run of silent films that unfortunately get overlooked in pop culture. While some have recognized Conrad Veidt’s excellent performance here as inspiring Batman’s The Joker, there are less who probably have seen it as maybe the saddest story over every decade. Based on a lesser-known Victor Hugo novel, it’s a story about a man who was cursed with a face that’s in a continual smile. Because of this, he has only one duty in his life, which is to go around to different towns and be billed as the man who laughs at everything.
Veidt’s performance was worthy of more attention because of how much needed to be conveyed by only his eyes. With the rest of his face plastered with a misleading smile, there is a need to understand his pain, his inability to properly express himself as he deals with a series of tragic circumstances. While this falls into a strange group of Universal “monster” movies that aren’t so much scary as they are about human deformity, it manages to show the complicated nature of acting in a silent film. It’s amazing how much is relied upon for the full face, and without it, something is lost.
Still, it’s because of this the audience is at constant odds with Veidt. He is hiding his deeper emotion and one becomes discomforted by his inability to be genuine. Is he laughing to keep from crying, or is there something more perverse going on? What pain does a happy man feel? While the concept is a bit silly and one-note, it works as Universal Horror’s best silent film because of how it contrasts these ideas, understanding that sometimes the worst fears come in the simplest of ways, that our body can reject us and send terrible miscommunication to the world. How do we live with that burden? Who would want to?
4. The Wolf Man (1941)
If I’m being honest, The Wolf Man as a character suffers the most from the trajectory that Universal would take with their franchises. In his only solo film, audiences are treated to some amazing special effects, watching a man transition into an unthinkable beast. Lon Chaney Jr. is worthy of being listed among the great character performances on this list for how much he gives in to his animal instinct, finding tragedy in his furry demise. While he may come across as the goofy misunderstood teenager compared to Frankenstein’s Monster or Dracula, he’s still a figure that makes the most of his screen time, making you understand why he stuck around.
However, the continuing need to mix franchises ultimately hurt The Wolf Man from becoming as iconic, thanks in large part to films like Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man (1943) and House of Dracula (1945) that found him doing bland cameos instead of real arcs. It’s what makes the 1941 title even more special, if just because it allowed for one of the most angst-filled characters to let loose, capturing a character who had so much more to offer. Still, for someone who felt marginalized further down the line, it’s great to know he has a solid origin story in tow.
5. The Phantom of the Opera (1925)
While he doesn’t show up often on this list, it feels important to recognize how Lon Chaney Sr. impacted the Universal Horror branding. As a silent film star, he was labeled as “The Man of 1,000 Faces” who went to his grave not sharing his secrets. He was charismatic, capable of conveying so many strange characters, and that included one of the first true icons of the studio’s horror label. It’s true that he may no longer be the most recognized version of this story (see: Andrew Lloyd Webber’s unstoppable musical), but he’s essential to understanding why this whole idea kicked off, finding that mix of fear and pain inside of Gaston Leroux’s memorable novel.
If there’s an issue with this film (and all of Chaney’s “monster” movies), it’s that they’re all stories about people who are scary because of their human deformities. It’s a dated aspect of this film that keeps it from being recalled as fondly. The reveal as Christine pulls back his mask is supposed to be triumphant but may look goofy to some. Still, it’s one of the most memorable shots in Universal Horror’s history. It’s overall a good adaptation of this story and one that sets the bar for where thematically these monsters will go in the near future.
Honorable Mention
Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954)
By this point, Universal Horror was running out of steam and needed anyway to stay relevant to modern audiences. With some luck, they created a “Creature” who became one of their most essential, an amphibious man who attacked women who swam at The Black Lagoon. It’s a very solid story about a man discovering the horrors of nature. It was a nice late entry that has gone on to inspire Oscar-winning films like The Shape of Water (2017) and while its sequels were nowhere near as memorable, it was still nice to know that they could still find ways to make the world a scary place to live.
What are your favorite Universal Horror movies?
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