Universal Monsters

Universal Monsters

NNo Hollywood studio is more closely associated with monster movies than Universal. This is mainly due to its impressive output of 1930s horror classics, many based on famous novels, such as Dracula, Frankenstein, The Invisible Man and The Wolf Man. Many made on the cheap but with good directors, such as James Whale and Tod Browning, and unforgettable actors like Bela Lugosi, Boris Karloff, Lon Chaney Jr and Claude Rains. Without a doubt, the 1930s is the central decade of the Universal Monsters era. But even earlier, in the silent era, Universal had already produced scary literary adaptations such as The Phantom of the Opera and The Hunchback of Notre Dame. In our Universal Monsters retrospective, it’s time to get (re)acquainted with these films as well as a few of the titles that followed in the 1940s and 1950s. During this period, Universal kept their monstrous reputation afloat by crossing their monster franchises with each other or with comedy greats Abbott and Costello while also trying out things such as adding 3D to films such as Creature from the Black Lagoon. Besides being spooky, these movies are also monstrously entertaining.