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THE MONSTER MASH

It’s hard to think about Universal Studios without also thinking about monsters. The reason for this, although most people don’t realize it, is that Universal created the most iconic monsters of all time. Frankenstein’s Monster, the Mummy, Count Dracula, the Wolf Man and the Creature from the Black Lagoon are all Universal’s children. The filmmakers may not have created the characters, but at the very least, Universal created the image of the characters that we all know them by today. Every Halloween, walking down every street in North America you will see the image of Dracula that originated from Bela Lugosi’s performance or the flat-headed, bolt-necked Frankenstein’s Monster that Boris Karloff implanted in the consciousness of the world in the movie Frankenstein. Everybody that grew up in America, dare I say the world, watched any number of shows and movies that had one of these highly recognizable creatures stalking its victims and being pursued by townsfolk. Say what you will, but monsters are as American as apple pie.

Universal began releasing horror films almost from day one of its creation. In 1913, the studio released two such films: Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, starring King Baggot, and The Werewolf, starring Phyllis Gordon as an Indian witch who can transform into a wolf. Although neither of these movies were ever highly popular and have now fallen into obscurity (The Werewolf is now considered a “lost film”), they were nonetheless a foretelling of things to come. The first horror films to become hits for Universal came in 1923 when the studio released its version of the The Hunchback of Notre Dame and then again with the 1925 release of The Phantom of the Opera.

In the early days of Hollywood, there were no makeup departments, no on-call artists to come and turn the actors and actresses into the unflawed masks of beauty or the horrific bad guys and villains of western lore and fright films. Up until sometime in the mid-1920s, every actor or actress was required to apply his or her own makeup and create his or her own persona for the characters the performer was hired to play. Lon Chaney, knowing this, took it upon himself to learn all he could about makeup, how it could be applied, manipulated and changed to create anyone or anything he wanted. This expert ability he developed not only gave him an advantage over other actors of the time but also led others into the field of makeup. which helped create the entire industry we know today. In The Phantom of the Opera, Chaney took the art of makeup to new and painful levels when, to create the desired revulsion when one looked at the Phantom, he placed hooks in his nostrils, ran wire up the bridge of his nose and pulled them tight behind his ears to get the distinctive flare we see on the screen. It was his dedication to the art that garnered him the nickname “Man of a Thousand Faces.”

In The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Chaney created one of the most grotesquely deformed characters in the history of film, and his portrayal of the love-struck Quasimodo, the deaf bell ringer of Notre Dame, is one that truly brings out the monster’s innate humanity. Then, in 1925, Chaney stunned and terrified the audience with the hideously disfigured face of Erik, the phantom, in a way that had never been seen on the screen up to that point. In the posters and promos for the film, Universal made sure to hide the face of the phantom so that when his visage was finally revealed in the movie, it would have the biggest effect possible on the viewer. Another reason for the popularity of Phantom of the Opera had to do with the realism of the film or, more specifically, the realism of the sets. Universal actually built the entire opera house, stage, balconies and theater boxes right into sound stage 28. This stage was one of the biggest in Hollywood, and Universal would use the opera house over and over again in many movies. Lon Chaney loved this set so much, maybe due to him spending so much time there, that even after his death, he returns often enough that his spirit has become a common sight to actors and crew who still work the stage to this day. The box office take for these movies was huge, and it set Universal on a course that is still felt today.

When the new talkies arrived in the late 1920s and early 1930s, Universal was there to scare the moviegoing public with visual frights, dialogue and subtle innuendo provided by actors who would become the epitome of the horror genre. With the 1931 release of the movie Dracula, the audience was introduced to a new Count, one that was at the same time familiar to those who had seen the stage production and completely different than the menacing vampire from the 1922 classic Nosferatu. Bela Lugosi was brought over from the Broadway show to reprise his role for the movie, and his hypnotic stare and imposing stature immediately drew viewers into the dark sphere of the cunning Count. The way Lugosi plays Dracula, with his slow Hungarian accent and slightly menacing undertones mixes well with the not-so-hidden sadness that always seems to be just under the surface. Viewers are never quite sure if they should be scared of him, feel sorry for him or pray that he gets staked as soon as possible. Dracula was released before widespread censorship had reached the Hollywood studios, and the movie comes across as a sensual tour de force, at least for the period, and this, along with Lugosi’s charm and mystery, make Dracula one of the first horror blockbuster movies ever made.

The same year that Dracula was released, Universal’s adaptation of Mary Shelley’s classic Frankenstein also came to the theaters. Universal had originally wanted to cast Bela Lugosi for the role of the monster but the film’s director, James Whale, decided that an obscure actor by the name of Boris Karloff would be a better choice for the part. The idea was to make the monster an unfeeling, diabolical killing machine, but when the towering Karloff got to the set, Whale took one look at him, and the whole dynamic of the creature changed. The monster was transformed from a mindless killing zombie into an almost childlike and confused lost soul rather than a monstrous killer. It would seem that Whale wanted to get this point across to the audience with the now famous scene where the monster comes across the young girl by the lakeside and all he seems to want is to make a friend. Even though the scene ends badly, the motivation of the creature is clear. This theme of a lonely, scared child is repeated in the sequel when the monster is befriended by an old blind man. When vengeful townsfolk arrive, and the old man’s house burns down around the creature, he mournfully cries out “friend,” over and over again, hoping the old man will come back to him. This “monster with emotion” became a consistent theme in many of Universal’s horror films.

Boris Karloff was again cast in the part of a Universal monster when he appeared in 1932’s The Mummy. Regardless of the title, the film only features Imhotep’s mummified corpse for a few moments in the opening scenes. But those brief clips as Imhotep is brought back to life and the surprised young archaeologist is driven mad by the sight of the cloth-wrapped priest set the tone for the rest of the film, which, as many viewers have stated, seems a bit of a letdown after such a terrifying introduction. Even though the film is light on the wrappings, Karloff ’s portrayal of Ardath Bey, Imhotep’s modern persona, looking for his lost love Ankhesenamun in an attempt to resurrect her spirit caught the widespread attention of the moviegoing public. This was another example of Universal’s propensity for making its creatures sympathetic. So popular and iconic was The Mummy that over the years, the franchise has had many sequels produced, cartoon mummies galore and a trilogy of films starring Brendan Fraser and Rachel Weisz. Now Universal is resurrecting the film with a woman in the starring role as the kick-off for its new Dark Universe series of monster movies.

With the successes of Dracula, Frankenstein and The Mummy, Universal set out to make a trilogy of films based on the writings of American horror author Edgar Allan Poe. Murders in the Rue Morgue was released in 1932 and followed by The Black Cat in 1934 and The Raven the following year. In between these films, Universal released The Invisible Man, starring Claude Rains. This is not your typical horror movie in which a monstrous creature roams the countryside looking for blood, rather it is a tale of one man’s slide into madness and ego-driven megalomania as he realizes his complete anonymity (in his mind) by being invisible. The movie is more dark comedy than horror film, and Rains is masterful in the role. His delivery of some extremely black jokes and his playfulness as he plots his dastardly deeds is pure genius. This is also one of the first films to make extensive use of special effects. The director used blue screen technology, the precursor of today’s modern green screen, and the scenes in which Rains is supposed to be on camera allow the audience to truly believe that he is there even though made invisible by the camera. The scene that has the (presumably naked) invisible man riding his bike down a country lane while whistling is hard not to find amusing, and watching him leave footprints in the snow (actually shoe prints in a blooper moment) add up to one rooting for the maniacal madman.

In 1935, James Whale bowed under pressure from Universal and reluctantly signed on to direct the very first horror sequel, The Bride of Frankenstein. Boris Karloff reprised his role as the monster from the original film and again plays the part less as a fiend and more as the lost little boy we remember—indeed, it seems as if most of the humans surrounding Karloff ’s character are more monstrous than the monster himself. Elsa Lanchester plays the title role and is uncredited for it. The Bride is only on screen for a few minutes, but Lanchester’s performance is so haunting and her hair so recognizable that it is known all around the world to this day. Elsa Lanchester would go on to have a long, stellar career; however, it is for this role that she will always be remembered.

The Bates Motel murder scene in the movie Psycho, one of the most iconic horror films of the 1960s, kept people away from the shower for years.

After The Bride of Frankenstein, Universal continued to produce horror films, and many of them were box office hits; however, none of these produced what one would call an iconic character or monster—that is until the year 1941. Based on folklore and legend rather than literary works as much of the past Universal fare was, The Wolf Man could take any road its writer wanted it to follow, and that is exactly what Curt Siodmak did with his script. Lon Chaney Jr. was cast in the part of Larry Talbot, a spoiled second son of a wealthy lord who is called back from America after his older brother is killed; Larry is to take over as heir to the fortune. No sooner does Larry arrive than he gets bitten by Bela Lugosi and becomes a werewolf. Chaney was not one of the better actors in the Universal stable but suited the part well with his bumbling gait and blank expression before changing into the hairy wolf that we all recognize today. The tale is not simply a monster flick but a story of redemption and a father who would do anything to help his child. Again, Universal makes the audience not only cringe from the monster but also feel for the creature and almost root for his survival in the hopes that he and his father will again join together as true family should.

Universal spent the rest of the 1940s making sequel after sequel within the established monster pantheon. Movies such as The Ghost of Frankenstein, The Mummy’s Tomb, Son of Dracula, House of Dracula, Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man and so on. Then, in 1948, Universal put a proverbial nail in the coffin of its established monsters; that year, Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein was released. The studio had been seeing a marked decline at the box office for its “Monster-Mash” movies as they were referred to in the media, and Universal had already decided to retire its old standbys. What better way to do this than to put them into a comedy with its highest-grossing duo, Abbott and Costello. Unfortunately, Boris Karloff would not reprise his role as the Monster; however, Bela Lugosi returned to play the role of the red and black–caped Count Dracula, and Lon Chaney Jr. returned as the Wolf Man. The film is set in Florida at a dark and scary gothic castle with a mad scientist’s lab. In Florida? The plot is razor thin, with the whole film being nothing more than a vehicle for the comedy duo to perform sight gags. The monsters it would seem are only in the film as joke set-ups rather than frights; they are never made fun of or treated disrespectfully, but it is clear that this is a comedy movie and not a monster movie. This is why I say that it was the end of the monster era, at least temporarily; it’s hard to get scared of a monster once you have laughed at it and with it, even if you are a kid. In Abbott and Costello Meet the Invisible Man and Abbott and Costello Meet Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, along with Abbott and Costello Meet the Mummy, those villains meet their doom as well.

After the horror of World War II and the dropping of the atomic bomb brought us into the nuclear age, along with the beginning of the Cold War, moviegoing audiences’ tastes in horror films took a dramatic turn. No longer were the old gothic monsters of the past the frightening boogie men of the future—now, it was science gone wrong that scared the world. What diabolical fiends were being created by the ever-growing atomic test clouds? What horrors awaited the world from radiation gone astray, and what monsters would emerge from the toxic waste being spread by the governments of the world? This new fear of science was immediately picked up on by the movie and television studios, and B movies were being pumped out by the dozens; Universal was no exception.

One of Universal’s first sci-fi horror attempts was the Ray Bradbury– inspired It Came from Outer Space. Not really a monster movie even with its giant-eyed space aliens, it touches on the country’s fear of what we don’t understand and the way mankind reacts with anger and hostility toward that which is foreign. The “monsters” in the film are treated as misunderstood creatures, and the audience is led, as is the Universal way, to sympathize and feel for the mistreated aliens. The film is, in its own way, quite scary and a worthy start to Universal’s sci-fi pantheon.

Universal’s next installment, Creature from the Black Lagoon, is another film that spawned a creature still highly recognizable to even the youngest trickor-treater. This is another movie in which Universal gives us a creature that is not simply to be feared but sympathized with in a Beauty and the Beast tradition. The Gillman finds that he is smitten with the heroine of the film, Key Lawrence, played by Julie Adams, and even though he has already killed some of her companions in an effort to get them to leave his lagoon, he blocks them from escape and kidnaps Key and takes her to his cave. This ultimately leads to his supposed doom. There is a scene in the film in which the Gillman swims directly under Key, and the scene has an eerie beauty to it that makes the audience aware of the creature’s feeling for the human woman. Again, Universal not only wanted the audiences to feel fear but also desired them to use their emotions of love, sympathy and, ultimately, loss.

With the exception of the 1956 film The Mole People and the highly recognizable underground mutant mushroom farmers, Universal didn’t create another iconic monster until the Graboids came out in the 1990 release of Tremors, unless of course you place Bruce the Shark from the movie Jaws in the category of monster. One movie that must be mentioned is the 1960 film Psycho. This Alfred Hitchcock classic stars Anthony Perkins as the mentally disturbed Norman Bates. The movie has perhaps the most well-known shower scene in the history of cinema when embezzler Marion Crane, played by the beautiful Janet Leigh, is brutally knifed to death by a killer hidden behind the curtain in a bloody scene that had viewers afraid to take showers for years afterward. The character of Norman Bates would go on to be the poster child for insanity, and the movie would become the first in a long line of movies known collectively as slasher films. Another Hitchcock film that deserves an honorable mention is the 1963 thriller The Birds. Technically not a horror film but a suspense thriller, this movie had audiences on the edge of their seats in terror as thousands of seemingly innocuous birds decide to attack and kill any human being they encounter.

Universal Studios is in the process of resurrecting horror classics and even plans on combining them into a single universe in which they can interact. Why the studio feels the need for this is beyond this writers’ comprehension, but it is exciting to think that the studio will be introducing a whole new generation to the classic horror pantheon. No matter who you are, young or old, it is an almost sure bet that you are at least familiar with most, if not all of Universal’s classic horror monsters. After all, I’m pretty sure we all dressed up at Halloween as one of them when we were younger and may have nightmares about them still.