Universal Monsters Movies Ranked
3. Frankenstein (1931)
Dr Frankenstein (Colin Clive) becomes obsessed with creating artificial life, but the resulting flawed monster (Karloff) escapes and causes havoc for the local populace, who form an angry mob in response to the accidental death of an innocent girl.
The intended Gothic sideshow tone for Universal’s second monster movie is set straight away by a pre-credits flourish that speaks straight to the audience in front of a velvet theatre curtain about the grim sights to come (“Well, we did warn you…”).
Colin Clive really does sell Dr Henry Frankenstein’s hysterical glee in his “It’s aliiive!” outburst, his arguable over-acting contrasting beautifully with Karloff’s more subtle style.
Interestingly, Henry was chosen as a name over Victor Frankenstein to make the male lead sound less Germanic, though the dashing alternative All-American romantic interest played by John Boles still gets to be called Victor.
The use of “normal” and “criminal” brains as a plot device hasn’t aged all that well, but director James Whale makes the very best use of the early motion picture technology – the high-contrast light and shadow, theatrical sets and German Expressionist visual embellishments help it to look many times more memorable than Dracula, and Karloff is perfect in his every moment as the victimised Monster.
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2. The Invisible Man (1933)
Scientist Jack Griffin (Claude Rains) secludes himself in an isolated hotel to cure himself of the invisibility he achieved in an experiment that is rapidly driving him mad. But, when his strange and aggressive behaviour is reported to the police, he begins a reign of unseen terror in the English countryside.
Rightly remembered for its special effects from John P Fulton, who used black covers for invisible elements against black backgrounds and thus created a matte element to print onto film (which was groundbreaking at the time and remains impressive 90-plus years later), James Whale’s HG Welles adaptation presented one of Universal’s best unforgivable baddies in Claude Rains’ Jack Griffin.
It’s such a simple idea to save on the budget and make your titular character an object of curiosity for the audience: have him first appear wrapped in a coat, hat and bandages ready for the big reveal (said reveal is equally shocking).
Being a James Whale movie, The Invisible Man presents a heightened reality; this is a highly theatrical tale that makes its lead monster as despicable as Frankenstein’s Monster was sympathetic.
The then-unknown Rains was the perfect casting as a mad scientist with delusions of grandeur, with his flamboyant delivery of nursery rhymes one minute and a terrifying fascistic monologue the next ensuring a truly unpredictable malevolent terror.
This film gets bonus points for the delightfully campy, brilliant screamer that is Una O’Connor.
1. Bride of Frankenstein (1935)
James Whale welcomes us back to his world with a clever little framing device involving Mary Shelley (Elsa Lanchester, also playing the Bride at the film’s finale) telling ghost stories to Lord Byron and handily recapping the plot of the first film (and acknowledging the Monster’s literary origins) in the process. There’s a certain casual disregard for how definitively the last film ended, but it’s doubtful entertainment-hungry audiences cared.
Despite his guilt over the destruction his experiment caused, mad scientist Dr Henry Frankenstein (Colin Clive) is convinced by the even madder Dr Pretorius (Ernest Thesiger) to create a second creature to perfect his theories.
What is immediately noticeable is that the Monster kills more excessively and indiscriminately this time, seemingly just because he has had enough with humanity.
The camp humour is liberally scattered throughout at Whale’s behest, particularly from the explicitly queer-coded Dr Pretorius, and the script is much sharper and more witty overall. It’s almost a shame we now think first of Gene Hackman’s frankly lethal blind man in Young Frankenstein, because the scene it is so affectionately ribbing here is so earnest and touching.
Boris Karloff may have been right in his opinion that having the Monster speak broken English throughout much of the film removes his enigmatic power. His final line “We belong dead!”, as he takes himself, his mate (Lanchester) and Pretorius to their deaths for the good of the world, still packs a punch however.
Bride of Frankenstein represents the very best of the Universal Monsters cycle of horror movies. It is filled with memorable imagery, over the top performances, and quotable dialogue, and is a hugely creative use of the budget available. It is quite rightly hailed as James Whale’s finest work.
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Universal would make several attempts to revive their Monster universe over the decades, from Van Helsing to new takes on Dracula, The Wolfman and The Invisible Man, and most infamously the misguided Dark Universe concept that was aborted after a single movie (the disastrous Tom Cruise-starring The Mummy).
However little faith these recent efforts leave you, rest assured that pretty much all of the classic Universal Monsters movies are at the very least genre curiosities, and a fair few of them are hugely influential near-masterpieces. They’re not hard to get your hands on either, and they won’t take up too much of your time, so check out as many from the top of this list as you can.
How many classic Universal horrors have you seen? Do you agree with the order of our list, or does it make you want to let out a monstrous roar? Let everyone know in the comments below, and be sure to find @thefilmagazine across social media – including Facebook and X (Twitter) – to keep up to date with all of our new movie lists.
How dare you put Dracula so far down. We shall have to fight this out in the SecondCutPod podcasts.