Universal Monsters Movies Ranked
10. The Phantom of the Opera (1925)
The Paris Opera House is haunted by a mysterious masked Phantom (Lon Chaney) who causes death and chaos while he attempts to make the singer Christine (Mary Philbin), who he is obsessed with, the biggest star of the stage.
Two years removed from the invention of the talkie and six years prior to the one-two punch of Dracula and Frankenstein that kick-started the Universal horror cycle in earnest, this early horror adaptation featuring Lon Chaney Sr in his most memorable role has many stylistic elements that would become prominent in the rapidly evolving genre over the coming years.
The Phantom of the Opera ambitiously adapts many of the intricacies of Gaston Leroux’s novel, juggling a dozen characters, romance and rivalries, a plot full of intrigue, and macabre goings on.
The most memorable and iconic scene is the unmasking, which reveals Chaney’s self-applied disfigurement makeup for the first time; a moment that purportedly caused audience members to faint.
As tragic as it is that Chaney died young and never got to establish himself as a talkie star, the physicality and emotional intensity of his performances was rooted in, and perfect for, the silent era.
9. Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954)
A scientific expedition in the Amazon encounters a prehistoric amphibious humanoid creature (Ben Chapman/Riccou Browning) who proceeds to pick off the boat crew one by one as they attempt to capture it for study.
Last out of the gate of the original run of monsters, but no less interesting for it, The Creature has one webbed foot in the previous two decades of horror and one in the upcoming 1950s trends.
Notable as a very early example of 3D exhibition, the film’s standard Universal story of an uncivilised monster vs All-American heroes overcomes some uncomfortable undertones with an unforgettable creature design and some incredibly impressive underwater photography sequences.
Recommended for you: 10 Films Where Ballet and Horror Dance Together
8. Son of Frankenstein (1939)
The eldest son of Dr Frankenstein (Basil Rathbone) travels with his family to his father’s castle in Europe to claim his inherited Barony but gets drawn into continuing his father’s dark experiments with the help of the sinister Ygor (Bela Lugosi).
Universal abandoned any effort to maintain continuity by this point.
The never-European town is renamed and remodelled, and the previously contemporary(ish) events are pushed further back into time to provide a bit of distance between the Monster’s creator and his not particularly reluctant heir to mad science-dom.
They would have probably just used Henry Frankenstein again if Colin Clive hadn’t passed away before his time. The Monster is silent again too, but that’s probably for the best.
This is the one that Mel Brooks seems to have drawn most heavily on for his spoof Young Frankenstein (1974), especially with the prominent scene of playing darts with a wooden-armed policeman.
Ygor is a fine addition to the mythology and is unusually nuanced (detestable yet tragic) in Lugosi’s hands, but at the other extreme Karloff and Rathbone clearly aren’t having much fun. Let’s not get started on one of the most irritating, attention-seeking child actors in screen history (“Well heeellooo!”).
How dare you put Dracula so far down. We shall have to fight this out in the SecondCutPod podcasts.