Horror/ Monster
Universal Horror is the name given to the distinctive series of horror films made by Universal Studios in California from the 1920s through to the 1950s. With their iconic gallery of monsters, Universal would create a lasting impression on generations of avid moviegoers around the world. more...
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1920s (Silent Era)
Universal's earliest success in the horror genre was Lon Chaney's The Phantom of the Opera in 1925, for which the actor famously designed and endured a torturous make-up. The interior of the Opéra Garnier was recreated on an epic scale for the film, and remains the longest-standing film-set to this day. It was used for the 1943 remake with Claude Rains, as well as numerous non-horror pictures. The set is contained on Stage 28 at Universal, which was constructed specifically for the film and dubbed \"The Phantom Stage.\"
Having already starred in The Hunchback of Notre Dame in 1923, Chaney continued to be the studio's most bankable horror star until his premature death from cancer in 1930.
The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1923);
The Phantom of the Opera (1925);
The Cat and the Canary (1927);
The Man Who Laughs (1928);
The Last Warning (1929);
The Last Performance (1929);
1930s (Golden Age)
In spite of the depression, executive Carl Laemmle Jr produced massive successes for the studio with Dracula (directed by Tod Browning) and Frankenstein (directed by James Whale), both in 1931.
The success of these two movies not only launched the careers of Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff, but also ushered in a whole new genre of American cinema. With Universal at the forefront, they would continue to build on their box office returns with an entire series of monster movies. These films would also provide steady work for a number of other genre actors including Lionel Atwill, Dwight Frye, Edward Van Sloan, and John Carradine. Other regular talents involved were make-up artists Jack Pierce and Bud Westmore, and composers Hans J. Salter and Frank Skinner. Many of the horror genre's most well-known conventions -- the creaking staircase, the cobwebs, the swirling mist and the mobs of peasants pursuing monsters with torches -- originated from these films and those that followed.
Next up was The Mummy (1932), followed by a trilogy of films based on the tales of Edgar Allan Poe: Murders in the Rue Morgue (1932), The Black Cat (1934) and The Raven (1935), the latter two of which teamed up Lugosi with Karloff. Also released was The Invisible Man (1933) which proved to be another phenomenal hit and would spawn several sequels. However, of all the Universal monsters, the most successful and sequelized was undoubtedly the Frankenstein series, which continued with Bride of Frankenstein (1935). Dracula too had its share of sequels, beginning with Dracula's Daughter in 1936, although none would feature its original leading man, Bela Lugosi.
Read more at Wikipedia.org
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