Universal Monsters Pt. 2: 1950's - 1970's

Part 2/3 of the Universal Monsters Series

The meticulous documentation of life as technology has advanced allows for more in depth dissection of the past. History is known to be colored by what that narrator wants us to know and what they don’t want us to know, impacting what conclusions can be made about those times. Movies and shows from the past however, have a much harder time lying about what they believe, what they want to say, and what audiences of those times found engaging or disturbing.

Pop and subcultures are mirrors of society in this way, media in a symbiotic relationship with life–life is the shark and media is the Kimora fish eating parasites off its skin in exchange for free transport and food. Horror monsters and the movies made around them are particularly poignant reflections of culture during a set moment in time. They display what is scary at that point, whether that is 1930’s immigration and women’s increasing freedoms or 1970’s economic and government upheaval in the western world. According to current day horror monsters we are syncing up with some of the same fears as our predecessors as the Universal Monsters or simply, Monsters, make their comeback to box office cinema.

Some portrayals of monsters and thus these reflections of societal fears have gone on to become famous films, pop culture figures, and horror flagships. The movies in part one of this series, which also covered the source materials like novels and original portrayals of Monsters, were those of the 30’s and 40’s whereas this part will include the 50’s, 60’s, and 70’s big Monster movie titles. In addition to overviews of the titles that fit the video criteria the Western history that influenced those portrayals is also overviewed. Horror comedy movies aren’t included in these breakdowns, but I did try to include an array of bigger Monster films for each decade. As you can probably guess that means that the next video will cover the 90’s, 2000’s, 2010’s and present day adaptations including Nosferatu 2024.

Something of note after compiling the list of movies for this project: some time periods, particularly those that are more filled with change have way more monster titles than those that are considered times of relative peace or stagnation. In the 50’s and 60’s there are 17 titles included, which seems like a lot until you look to the 70’s which has about 33 that decade alone. As a time of upheaval in culture and society it tracks that the seventies would have so many titles if the theory that change correlates stands up.

We are only halfway through the 2020’s decade at the end of this year, 2024, and the number of monster titles have picked up particularly in the last 2 years. Nosferatu, a remake of the 1922 film of the same name, came out on Christmas Day 2024, and has garnered a lot of buzz–like Blockbuster buzz, not just horror movie buzz. Not only is Nosferatu, starring Bill Skarsgård as Count Orlok, coming out but a handful of other new adaptations of monsters are coming out or have come out recently.

These 2020’s titles include loose adaptations The Cursed (2021), The Invitation (2022), The Angry Black Girl and Her Monster (2023), El Conde (2023), Lisa Frankenstein (2024), and The Bride! (2025) and more related to source material adaptations The Last Voyage of the Demeter (2023), Renfield (2023), Abigail (2024), Nosferatu (2024), Frankenstein (2025), and Wolf Man (2025). I don’t think it would be preposterous to say that these are weird and downbeat times in the Western world this decade and the increase in Monsters to deal with these sometimes abstract fears just makes sense.

This is the one and only trigger warning in the video: horror movies are generally rated ‘R’ when they come out and thus cover topics that can be horrifying like murder, gruesome curses, apocalyptic circumstances, and hauntings of all kinds. If you are squeamish or troubled by dark and macabre topics this video and channel probably aren’t for you–which is more than okay. On the other hand if you like horror, find the macabre to be the most fascinating, and/or like historical context to media then welcome and carry on.

Section 1: 1950's to 1960's

Overview

The 50’s are generally regarded as a time of great prosperity in the US due to the economic and baby boom following the end of World War II in 1945. According to History.com approximately 4 million babies were born each year during the decade and didn’t taper off until 1964–resulting in 77 million baby boomers we still deal with today.

History.com also attributes most of the growth to government spending like construction of interstates and VA benefits; all of which culminated in the gross national product up 250% by 1960. While all of this government-facilitated good happened the 60’s also ushered in the Civil Rights Movement. After WWII ended the benefits and income gaps between White-Americans and Black and Brown people became more apparent in the US despite the equal service and sacrifice of all during WWII. The persistence of Jim Crow laws that never delivered on the promise of “separate but equal” significantly hindered prosperity for Black and Brown communities so that White-Americans at the state and local level could benefit.

While the US faced upheaval at home the country also entered into a period of competition amongst world superpowers known as the Cold War between itself and the Soviet Union. The USSR automatically represented the communist ideology while USA capitalism, as both wanted to spread their ways of life as the quote-unquote “best” and adopt nations into their sphere of influence through its spread. In the US tensions of the Cold War led to McCarthyism, widespread paranoia about hidden, evil communists, which rolled right into the Space Race.

The creation of NASA in 1958 after the Soviet Union launched Sputnik 1 the year prior is one of the clearest examples of the competition between nations. Both nations also began an arms race to develop bigger and better nuclear weapons while their usually not-so-peaceful attempts to spread influence caused tensions between and within nations. This tension was coupled with general mistrust rising across the globe that increased the likelihood of nuclear weapons being used, thus increasing the fear of nuclear war in the Western world.

Individual Movie Reviews

The Werewolf (1956)...

...is the first movie and an American film considered to be horror sci-fi directed by Fred F. Sears and written by Robert E. Kent and James B. Gordon. A total of 3 werewolf films were made in the US during the 50’s, Daughter of Dr. Jekyll (1957) and I Was a Teenage Werewolf (1957). In the US it was released as the 2nd film in a double feature with Earth vs. the Flying Saucers (1956).

Monsters tend to have a “the danger is hidden among us” vibe regardless of the decade, the 50’s being no different. One thing about McCarthyism is the marked paranoia, fitting the theory that monster horror films align with increased societal fears and upheaval. A difference in this version of Lycanthropy story however is the inclusion of nuclear holocaust and the need to survive an impending one with the use of the curse via a wolf serum.

The Curse of Frankenstein (1957)...

...came out the following year and is the first monster movie that British company, Hammer Film Productions created. The film was the studio’s first color film and the success of it inspired them to create similar movies, like Dracula (1958) and The Mummy (1959). These reprisals of gothic horror films would go on to influence horror to this day but at the time a couple of dudes wanted to make money making movies–and what better way than low budget horror flicks that will draw wide audiences and are timeless in rental revenues and potential sequels.

Directed by Terence Fisher and written by Jimmy Sangster the film stars the legendary Christopher Lee as the monster and horror legend Peter Cushing as the lead, Baron Victor Frankenstein. The low budget didn’t stop the movie from generating millions at the box office, a crazy feat that didn’t account for the revenue from VHS, DVD, merchandise, and copyright licensing still being made.

Taking place in 1800’s Switzerland it follows the typical Frankenstein outline; Frankenstein explains his tale to someone for fear he’ll die soon (although in this case it’s execution rather than his hunt for the creature in the arctic). To a priest he explains how he got there starting with his childhood and acquiring his family’s estate at a young age after his mother passed away.

Hiring a man to tutor him Victor wants to perform experiments and has a fascination with life and death, reanimating a dead puppy at some point. Once they succeed at this Victor goes full steam ahead on acquiring body parts to perform the same reanimation experiment on a humanoid-creature built from various corpse body parts, just the usual Frankenstein life goal.

After murdering a professor to transfer his brain into the creature, it is then reanimated and absolutely horrifies Victor. The creature is definitely disgusting to look at but that’s the point and the makeup, costume, and light design do a great job showing that without crazy expensive techniques or equipment. The appearance of the monster more closely aligns with Shelley’s description in the novel rather than the popularized image of neck bolts and a rectangular head shape.

The monster’s story ends in fire like many Frankenstein monsters do and Victor pleads for people to believe he didn’t kill anyone but rather the monster did. In the end he is led to the guillotine and presumably dies at the end–which presents a tricky situation for a sequel that we’ll address shortly. But first…

I Was a Teenage Werewolf (1957)...

...came out the same year as the Curse of Frankenstein but was produced across the pond in America by American International Pictures or AIP that released as a double feature with Invasion of the Saucer Men. Releasing in June 1957 it’s directed by Gene Fowler Jr. and written by Herman Cohen and Aben Kandel. As the title suggests this tale follows a high schooler rather than a young, European aristocrat. This teen, Tony Rivers, is played by Michael Landon and is referred by a police Detective to speak with a psychologist following him being in fights.

After overreacting to a Halloween prank he decides to seek help from the psychologist who specializes in hypnotherapy that he’s been referred to. The doctor recruits him for a trial of scopolamine serum that is intended to regress people to their primitive instincts. Dr. Brandon proceeds with injecting Tony despite his assistant warning how dangerous it could be for him.

Once part of the trial Tony receives therapy sessions from Dr. Brandon where traumatic memories surface and Brandon believes that Tony had once been a wild animal. Shortly thereafter Tony’s friend, Frank, is attacked and killed while walking home and the wound marks look like they were inflicted from fangs despite the lack of large animals in the area.

The police station janitor recognizes the wounds in the crime scene photos and is from an area where werewolves are common. Despite things looking good for Tony, getting a recommendation for college from his principal, he attacks and kills a girl in the gym as he’s leaving school following a bell ring. The bell ring transformed him and in his state he rabidly attacked only to show up in normal form the next day.

A distraught Tony goes to Brandon and his assistant for help but kills them after a phone ring causes him to transform. Their intentions had been to film the transformation to prove what the serum can do. The detective ends up shooting Tony once himself and another officer arrive on scene. After being shot Tony begins to revert back to human form from the wolf form which raises mad questions about what exactly is going on there.

I Was a Teenage Frankenstein (1957)...

...came out the same year following the success of I Was a Teenage Werewolf. Also by American International Pictures it came out as a double feature with Blood of Dracula in November. The film is a sequel to the previously released I Was a Teenage Werewolf that came out earlier in the year and were followed up by How to Make a Monster. In this rendition the monster itself kills a teenage boy in order to steal his face for his own use.

Unrelated to the 1957 Curse of Frankenstein this American International Pictures production follows a Professor Frankenstein who creates a monster. After acquiring a body from a car crash Frankenstein uses other remains he has at his laboratory to complete the monster for animation. His secretary gets drug into his psychotic break and discovers the monster animated and living.

Later the monster gets out and in an Of Mice and Men plot line he kills a woman in a panic when her reaction to him is loud and could draw attention to them. The assistant confronts the professor about the monster’s murdering and Frankenstein commands the monster to kill her. In this rendition the monster then goes to a make out spot and kills a teenage boy in order to steal his face for his own use.

Frankenstein tells a doctor that he is going to dismember the monster, put those pieces into boxes then ship those boxes to England. He plans to then travel there himself and reassemble the monster. Not loving how things are shaking out, the monster breaks free of restraint before dismemberment and kills Frankenstein. The doctor with Frankenstein does escape to get help however, later arriving with police. Fortunately for those police, the monster electrocutes himself after coming into contact with an electrical board.

How to Make a Monster (1958)...

...came out the following year and is mostly a black and white film but it switches to color in the end, with the last reel being filmed in technicolor. Directed by Herbert L. Strock and written by Herman Cohen and Aben Kandel, How to Make a Monster is a direct follow up to both Teenage Monster movies that came out in 1957.

Pete Dumond, played by Robert H. Harris, has been at the helm of the American International Studios make-up department but finds out he will soon be fired when the studio changes management. As a horror make-up artist that specializes in special effects and monster make-up the new owners don’t believe Pete will be a good fit for the studios new direction–musicals and comedies.

After seeing what the new guys have to offer Pete sets out to get revenge on them and to use the monsters to bring them down. Pete creates a mixture with foundation that he convinces actors to apply, thus making them his slaves. The actors he convinces are the 2 from the teenage movies, Tony Mantell–teenage Frankenstein and Larry Drake–teenage werewolf, played by Gary Conway and Gary Clarke respectively. Pete uses his control over Larry to order him to kill one of the studio execs he blames for the circumstances with the studio.

The following day the studio guard questions Pete and his assistant about their whereabouts around a murder but is killed by Pete in monster makeup while doing his routine rounds. Despite basically getting caught by a second security guard Pete continues his murder spree and orders Tony to attack and kill Clayton, an exec, once he gets home.

During the investigation into his murder the police find a witness to the crime who identifies Tony–teenage Frankenstein as the assailant who killed Clayton. Once it’s clear the police will connect the dots Pete takes the monsters to his home for one last shindig. There Pete ends up attacking the 2 actors in monster costumes and his assistant surrounded by his creations from his studio career that he keeps in his home. The police, headed for them at that point, aren’t fast enough to stop a fire caused by Larry that results in Pete’s death.

The Revenge of Frankenstein (1958)...

...came out first in the US in early June and then late August in London one year after The Curse of Frankenstein and the same year as the aforementioned AIP projects. It is the second technicolor Hammer Film Productions installation also directed by Terence Fisher and written by Jimmy Sangster. Although Peter Cushing reprises his role as Baron Victor Frankenstein, Christopher Lee is absent from this production. Instead Frankenstein’s experiment is the transplantation of a brain from one living subject to another subject.

Taking place in 1860 Baron Victor Frankenstein evades execution and a priest is beheaded in his place, replacing him in his burial with the help of Karl, a hunchback. Three years later Frankenstein takes on a new identity, Doctor Stein, and has moved to Carlsbrück where he’s set up a practice that caters to the wealthy while also working at a hospital for the poor. A younger medical council member, Hans Kleve, requests to be Dr. Stein’s apprentice after growing admiration for his work in the town.

This new team, which includes Frankenstein posing as Stein, Hans–his new apprentice, and Karl–the hunchback who helped him escape his execution. They immediately pick back up the experiment Frankenstein had been working on to transplant a living brain from one body to a new body with the caveat that this time it won’t be a “cobbled-together creature” and Karl volunteers as tribute. After the transplant of Karl’s brain he worries about becoming a quote-unquote “medical sensation” and gets Victor’s assistant to free him.

In typical Victor fashion he hadn’t considered that his previous brain transplant experiment resulted in the orangutan subject cannibalizing another orangutan until Hans mentions it. Karl breaks into Victor’s lab and destroys his original body and is attacked by a janitor that he ends up killing. Karl goes on to murder a local girl and then beg for Victor’s help while exposing his true identity. After being exposed Victor is unable to put the genie back in the bottle and the town’s council confirms that Frankenstein is in fact not dead.

Victor is then attacked by the patients at his hospital and Hans uses his dead body to prove to the police they need not investigate further. This is just distraction however as Victor created a body that resembles his own for his brain to be implanted to upon his death. Flash forward and Hans and Victor welcome patients to a hospital–up to the same schtick.

At this time the story of Frankenstein and his monster were imaginative, interesting even, rather than run-of-the-mill as a standard Frankenstein movie might be viewed today despite it being ready-made source material. Now, having created multiple successful color horror films with higher expectations for plots and acting, Hammer Films had a formula.

Dracula (1958)...

...came out the same year and Christopher Lee’s performance became the new blueprint for Count Dracula. Peter Cushing plays the part of Van Helsing, a role that became a cornerstone to his own career. It’s the first Dracula movie in the Hammer Film series and is based on the 1897 Bram Stoker novel and previous Universal films. To differentiate from Dracula (1931) the film was released as Horror of Dracula in the US and can be found referenced by both titles.

Set in 1885 at Count Dracula’s castle near a NW Romania city, Klausenburg, the plot opens with Harker getting to the castle–as is customary in many Dracula films. In a voiceover by Cushing we learn he’s a vampire hunter who’s come to rid the world of Dracula. While snooping around Harker finds a woman who pleads for his help only for her to try and bite his neck until Dracula comes and forces her away. Regardless of being saved in that moment however, Harker awakes with bite marks on his neck and significant time missing–now becoming a vampire himself.

After Harker kills Dracula’s bride he misses Dracula rising and escaping to the door. When he goes to stake Dracula he realizes too late and is then trapped in the crypt by the angry Dracula. Flash forward and Van Helsing is searching for Harker in Klausenburg and gets a lead from Harker’s journal. Unfortunately, by the time Van Helsing gets to the castle it’s seemingly deserted. He finds evidence of Harker’s presence and continues searching but finds Harker as a vampire in the crypt.

Van Helsing stakes and kills Harker and then goes to his sickly fiancé, Lucy, to inform her brother, Arthur, and sister-in-law, Mina, of Harker’s death. Dracula is ahead of him however and already has Lucy in his control, eventually becoming a vampire herself after she’s thought to have died. After Van Helsing and Arthur stake Lucy, killing her, Dracula lures Mina to him with the plan to replace Lucy with her. Eventually Van Helsing defeats Dracula by forcing him into rays of sunlight with a cross, the Count burns into ash and dust instantly. In those ashes are his clothes and ring. Mina goes on to live life with a scar that eventually fades away.

Not only did fans like this adaptation but critics did as well, overall being a success that is well regarded to this day. According to Variety it was 1 of the 12 most popular British box office films in 1958. Not only was it a critical success it also raked in money–earning around $3.5 million in theatrical releases worldwide. Hammer Productions had grossed approximately $18 million according to a Variety article from 1959 with 8 of their most popular movies in worldwide releases.

The film originally cost under £82K pounds (£1.63 million pounds today or about $2.4 million dollars) to make with Bray Studios and the limitations of the project like budget and timeline guided this adaptation of the novel by writer, Sangster. One of these changes is Dracula’s ability to transform into other animals not being included in order to make it more realistic in terms of special effects. Fisher is responsible for making it more sexual and according to him Dracula is preying on the “sexual frustrations of his woman victims” even directing actresses to play things sexually. Rather than that it comes across as women being objects or pieces rather than individual parts.

The Return of Dracula (1958)...

...also came out the same year but was created by Gramercy Pictures, an American studio. United Artists released it as the 1st in a double feature with The Flame Barrier, a sci-fi film about a space chimpanzee in need of saving. Starting in the Balkans, this far less popular adaptation begins following an investigator, John Meierman played by John Wengraf, and his assistants looking to trap Count Dracula in his tomb. They open his casket only to find that it’s empty, devoid of the Count and a ruin to their plans.

Dracula has fled via train and impersonates a Czech artist that is on his way to the USA after murdering him. The artist has family in California he is visiting and once Dracula arrives he introduces himself as Bellac, the artist from Czech. Since it’s olden-times they don’t necessarily know what their cousin would look like so they are just stoked to meet him–especially Bellac’s cousin’s daughter who also likes history.

Dracula as Bellac is super weird and doesn’t just fit right into the family, soon after his arrival the family’s son’s cat is found dead and mutilated after going missing. Under their noses Dracula-Bellac has made a little place to rest in his coffin in an abandoned mineshaft–also very American. Despite not seeing him during the day Rachel, the teenage daughter, sees him at night and believes his excuse for daytime absence, having spent the day painting according to him. She has a job taking care of the elderly and Dracula decides to cure an old lady of blindness after Rachel is done with work by biting her.

Rachel finds a photo of herself in a coffin in Dracula-Bellac’s room on her way out to a Halloween party (American). She then suddenly realizes his reflection doesn’t appear in the mirror and she goes off to the party with her boyfriend. She ends up fleeing to the mineshaft in search of Dracula while the men stalk the elderly woman’s grave whom Dracula bit and is likely becoming a vampire. The boyfriend and Rachel use a crucifix to make Dracula fall down a mine shaft where he’s impaled with a wooden post and disintegrates into a skeleton. Obviously it’s a US film in the 50’s so they couldn’t stake him but rather just assist in his demise. No idea why it had to be teenage other than ‘Merica.

Part of this movie's advertisement campaign put on by United Artists and thus the draw of the film was that it hadn’t been insured by any of the 12 companies they had approached. They refused to assume liability risk for those watching the film–which is actually a cold AF and hard AF way to tell someone their film ain’t shit. The far-better Hammer Productions adaptations overhauled the minor attention that this film had drawn, this one fading into obscurity and the other arguably becoming one of the 3 canon Count Draculas in horror pop culture.

The Curse of the Werewolf (1961)...

...notably comes out 3 years later than those films and is another Fisher directed Hammer Film Production; written by John Elder and produced by Hinds. As usual the werewolf is the divergence from the path of a Monster and takes on various adaptations across decades that are faintly attached unlike that of Dracula for vampires or Frankenstein for creatures that are compared to particular source materials. Curse of the Werewolf is based on The Werewolf of Paris by Guy Endore, a horror novel that published in 1933.

Oliver Reed stars as the werewolf, Leon Corledo, but the start of the film follows a Spanish beggar who is imprisoned by a nobleman of the time. While imprisoned he communicates with the jailer and his daughter who gets thrown in the dungeon with him after refusing advances from the man in charge. The beggar then rapes her and then dies himself–explained by him going crazy from being imprisoned.

The girl, only credited as “servant girl” despite her assault being a central plot point in this…werewolf movie kills the assaulter and manages to escape. She’s found by Don Alfredo Corledo who is played by Clifford Evans. Don lives with his housekeeper who keeps the girl alive named Teresa. The unnamed girl dies after giving birth and Teresa remarks that giving birth on Christmas Day is bad luck and that circumstances surrounding his conception make him cursed–he is a werewolf. Leon, the werewolf, gets a taste for blood and struggles to overcome his urges during adolescence.

He is arrested after murdering people while in wolf form and wants to be killed before he harms more people. Leon requests that they execute him but they don’t believe his confessions that he murdered his friend and a woman from a brothel. He ends up killing multiple people after becoming a wolf and breaking out of the cell. Leon’s dad is then called in and shoots him with a silver bullet, mournfully covering his body.

Production of this movie took place on a set meant for a Spanish inquisition movie about rape that never saw the light of day. Despite the source material being set in Paris the location is changed in this film to Madrid to avoid the additional cost of set building–which provides a lot of insight into the vibe. It ended up being censored upon its release as a Double Feature with Shadow of the Cat (1961) and 2 versions exist, the censored and uncensored. To no surprise this film didn’t reach near the success of the other monster movies for the studio like Dracula and The Mummy. It’s reviewed as beautiful but not much substance to that beauty in either plot or horror.

The Evil of Frankenstein (1964)...

...was released 3 years even after the wolf movie and is produced by Hammer Films. Deviating from the norm up to this point Evil is directed by Freddie Francis but written by John Elder who wrote the previously covered Curse of the Werewolf. It’s the 3rd movie in the Hammer Frankenstein series and Peter Cushing returns as Baron Victor Frankenstein while Kiwi Kingston plays the Creature. Hans, Victor’s assistant, is played by Sandor Elés, Zoltan by Peter Woodthorpe, and the mute woman played by Katy Wild.

Frankenstein and Hans are caught by a child while stealing their recently deceased relative’s body parts. They are caught by a priest during this and the child is able to identify Frankenstein and Hans, his associate, as the body thieves. Once identified they flee to Frankenstein’s home to fleece the house and sell the valuables. They then save a deaf-mute young woman when they arrive at a village and Victor sees the burgomaster has his ring while he and Hans are out in the village. Victor rashly confronts him and this exposes his identity thus causing this town’s authorities to chase after him now also.

The pair hide with a hypnotist named Zoltan whose subsequent harassment from the authorities provides a distraction that allows Victor and Hans to escape. Later on when they flee town they run into the young woman they rescued earlier whom leads them to a cave where she’s taken shelter. At this cave Victor finds the creature frozen in ice which he and Hans quickly melt. After getting the creature out of the ice they take it back to Victor's lab to bring it back to life.

Victor fails to bring the creature back to life and requests that Zoltan try. He does bring the creature back to life but has made it so that the creature only responds to him. Zolton makes the creature kill the town’s authorities in revenge then commands him to kill Victor. Unfortunately for Zoltan the creature doesn’t listen to his command and instead listens to Victor’s request to kill Zoltan. After the creature smashes the lab a fire breaks out and Hans is able to escape with the mute woman. They both watch on from safety outside as the lab explodes and falls from the house off a cliff. The damage is so bad it’s presumed that Frankenstein and his monster are both dead.

Despite the first 2 films in the Hammer Frankenstein Series being hits, this 3rd film left much to be desired. The half-done concept and execution of the film can be partially attributed to the circumstances around the production at the time. The editorial, “‘The Evil of Frankenstein’ is a Fascinating Oddity in Hammer’s Frankenstein Series [Hammer Factory” by Paul Ferrell goes into detail about the revolving door for key roles on the project. Ferrell also mentions the deal that Hammer got with Universal which gave them the a-okay to use iconic imagery from Frankenstein (1931) like the make-up look for the creature which should have made things better. From a Monsters of Makeup’s article, “Making Up the Hammer Horror Frankenstein Films” by Luke Munson about the Frankenstein series, “By the time the third installment of the series was underway, the budgets for the Hammer films were shrinking.” Munson also writes that Roy Ashton ended up doing the makeup for the film after Philip Leakey left due to producers trying to cut costs by screwing him over.

Munson notes that despite Ashton coming up with almost 300 concepts for the make-up look the studio wanted to go with more recognizable designs which became regarded as unimaginative. It’s very crafted together at the last minute which according to Munson it very well could have been due to the tight restrictions on budget and time for the project. In addition to these makeup snafus the plot breaks continuity with the prior 2 Frankenstein films Hammer produced. Using just a flashback they divert entirely from the other films by making an alternate backstory for Victor. Needless to say, it wasn’t received nearly as well as the other 2 films and is more of a miss for the studio.

Frankenstein Meets the Space Monster (1965)...

...was filmed the same year that the Evil of Frankenstein came out and released the following year. In a diversion from the other films this one doesn’t feature the creature/monster or Frankenstein, taking place in completely different settings with entirely unrelated characters.

The plot is: an android robot, Frank, is made partially from human parts and proceeds to terrorize an island of people following damage he sustains during a space battle. Following the death of all women on Mars due to atomic war–something of great concern in 1964–Martian royalty decide to come to Earth and steal Earth’s women. The women abduction is considered a subplot to Frank the space robot being awful and in the end himself and a Martian invasion force mutant battle to the death–killing each other.

Reviews from fans and critics alike have considered it, “off-beat, not to be taken seriously, and cheesy” and isn’t included in all Frankenstein lists for clear reasons. This film is a stark example of horror movies mirroring the fears of society. Only 2 years following The Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, the closest that the Soviet Union and the US had come to nuclear war, the use of those fears in the plot of the film makes sense from a studio standpoint. Unfortunately, the connection to current times didn’t save its lackluster connection to the series or overall cringe.

Prince of Darkness (1966)...

...is the 3rd film in the Dracula series from Hammer and Christopher Lee returns for his role as Count Dracula after being absent from the successful Brides of Dracula. Directed by Fisher and written by Sansom and Elder, it opens with the final scene of Dracula when Van Helsing defeats the Count by exposing him to sunlight.

There wouldn’t be a movie without a misguided visit to Count Dracula’s castle–the Kents, a family on vacation are those visitors this go around. They’re left on the side of the road by their driver on the journey to the castle and are picked up by a driverless carriage from the castle like a Haunted Mansion ride at Disney. Greeted by a servant, Klove played by Phillip Latham, there is already a table set for the family upon their arrival to the castle.

The family learns that the Count had ordered the castle be ready for strangers at all times, which he honors despite the Count’s death. Things couldn’t be going better for the Kents at this point, almost too good. Alan, one of the Kents, played by Charles ‘Bud’ Tingwell–an actor who’s appeared in over 100 movies, follows Klove down into the crypt that night like an idiot.

Klove is no joke and kills Alan then uses Alan’s blood to resurrect Dracula from his ashes. Klove then gets Helen, played by Barbara Shelley, to come to the crypt and there Dracula drains her of blood, revived and full now. The other Kent family members wake the next day confused as to where their loved ones have gone in the night. Charles, played by Francis Matthews, goes looking for Alan and finds him right as the sun sets–leaving him in Dracula’s clutches. Diana, played by Suzan Farmer, is looking for Helen and finds her as a vampire that attacks Diana until Dracula stops it.

Dracula and Charles get into a struggle but Charles improvises a large crucifix which allows him and Diana to escape in a carriage. After crashing on their dash away Diana is badly injured and Charles carries her through the woods until the town’s priest finds them and takes them to his abbey. Klove also arrives shortly with a wagon containing Dracula and Helen’s coffins requesting entry that he is denied.

At the abbey a patient is a slave to Dracula however so denying Klove didn’t matter and that patient lets Dracula in. Helen is also able to gain entry by convincing Diana, whom Helen recently attacked, to let Helen in through Diana’s window. Diana is a fool and believes her claims that she’d run away from Dracula, now seeking refuge but the moment she’s inside she bites Diana. Scuffles ensue between various parties with various motivations like that of Dracula to have Diana as his bride.

The priest is able to catch Helen and stake her but the patient accomplice has now brought Diana to Dracula. Dracula uses his powers to make her take off her cross and makes her drink blood from his chest. Before this can finish Charles is back and Dracula takes off with an unconscious Diana. Charles and the priest then follow on horseback, getting ahead of Dracula and stopping him. Dracula’s coffin, in the carriage, ends up on the ice-covered moat below the castle and when Charles tries to stake they battle. The priest then shoots at the ice in order to break it and after being rescued by Diana, Charles is safe but Dracula sinks into the icy water trapped in his coffin.

Despite the Dracula dependent plot Christopher Lee has no written dialogue in the script for the film. A Moira Reviews synopsis of the film states that Christopher Lee hadn’t wanted to return to the Hammer films until he’d “established himself as a serious actor first” and notes that Lee says his lack of dialogue was a choice on his part due to the awful dialogue written for him in the script. The same review argues the point that the lack of dialogue made Dracula more animalistic and thus makes him a quote-unquote “tiger in a cage, prowling and roaring, but never getting to pounce.”

Frank Collins wrote a Medium piece, “Dracula Prince of Darkness (1966): Director Terence Fisher revives Christopher Lee’s Dracula for Hammer’s lush, atmospheric sequel” where he states that Anthony Nelson Keys wanted to use the same set and actors for this film as had been used for a Rasputin film in order to cut costs. Many in the studio world raised concerns and objections to things like the ritualistic murder of Alan to revive Dracula and murder scenes wrought with blood and screaming (Collins). Fears that things in the film would be anti-Christian became inconsequential when films like Dracula hit the box office and far outperformed expectations.

Frankenstein Created Woman (1967)...

...is the 4th film in the Hammer Frankenstein series and marks the return of Terence Fisher and Anthony Hinds collaborating on a Frankenstein movie. This movie follows Evil of Frankenstein and stars Peter Cushing as Baron Victor Frankenstein, Robert Morris as Hans, Susan Denberg as Christina Kleve, and Thorley Walters as Dr. Hertz. Originally the film was a follow-up to The Revenge of Frankenstein in 1958 but didn’t go into production until 1966.

Following the guillotine death of Hans’ father he finds himself working as Victor’s assistant after Victor survived the castle's demise. Victor and Dr. Hertz, his associate, are attempting to find a way to trap a soul and then transfer it into a recently deceased body and bring it to life. He ends up getting into a bar fight to defend Christina, a deformed woman who is the daughter of an innkeeper. At this inn a group of assholes had been taunting her but Hans slices his face and the innkeeper calls the authorities.

The guys who gave Christina a hard time end up breaking into the inn later that night and beat the innkeeper to death when he catches them. Christina and Hans spend a night together and she goes off to a doctor the next day completely unaware of what’s gone on at the inn. The town blames Hans for Kleve’s death upon discovering his beaten body and recalling Hans threatening Kleve when he broke up the fight the night before. Hans is arrested and refuses to say that he had been with Christina–which would provide him an alibi for the murder. Hans ends up being executed because he won’t tell them his whereabouts and the trial had been rigged against him.

Rather than be distraught by the injustice wrought upon his assistant, good ol’ Victor seizes the opportunity to snatch Hans’ soul and collect his body. When Christina comes back to town she sees Hans being hung for his crimes and jumps into the river. Villagers get her body out of the river and bring it to Hertz who then with the help of Victor transfers Hans’ trapped soul into Christina’s body. They are able to cure her physical deformities with long term treatments and she ends up not remembering her past life. Kept in Hertz’s house Victor is adamant that she not be informed about her past lives.

She eventually realizes her identity but is then possessed by Hans who seeks revenge for his wrongful death. Christina then murders 2 of the men that were involved in Hans’ execution at his behest to which Victor and Hertz get concerned and bring her to the same guillotine that Hans and his father were executed on. Christina ends up drowning herself again after recollecting Hans’ father’s death and murdering the 3rd man whom killed Kleve and ruined Hans’ life. Victor is sad about the outcome of things, more so because of the experiments than her anguish. The film ends with him walking away, pondering.

Frankenstein Created Woman is a much more complex story than that of The Evil of Frankenstein and it’s been lauded as a good move that Created Woman diverged from Evil without referencing back to it, leaving it as a weird side-step for the franchise. Scream Horror Mag article “Frankenstein Created Woman” Film Review” posted January 25th, 2016 states that the film's title in combination with the X rating made audiences believe it would be more exploitative but that the film raised expectations. Although shocking at the time, not much that occurs in the film is shocking today and it is one of the more interesting plots that I’d actually want to be re-created in modern form.

Dracula Has Risen from the Grave (1968)...

...is the 3rd film that features Christopher Lee as Dracula and 4th Dracula film in the HF series. Freddie Francis directed, the same man who directed The Evil of Frankenstein, and it opens with a Monsignor played by Rupert Davies, Ernst Mueller. A young woman’s body is discovered in the church, seemingly a victim of Dracula. It’s one year following the events of the last Dracula film and he’s regarded as destroyed. Mueller comes to town, as he normally would, only to find that the altar boy who discovered the woman is mute and the priest of that church has lost his faith, neither much help.

Villagers have stopped attending Mass and believe that things that the shadow of Dracula’s castle touches should be avoided. Mueller isn’t having this and he goes to exorcise the castle. The priest comes part way up the mountain with Mueller but is too frightened to continue on with him. Mueller exorcises the castle by chanting scripture and placing a large, metal cross on the entrance. When this happens a thunderstorm pops off which frightens the priest who starts running down the forested hills and falls, knocked unconscious with a bleeding head wound.

The priest doesn’t see that his blood is trickling down into a crack in the frozen stream below and perfectly onto Dracula’s lips. This revives Dracula and the village's fears are officially actualized. After Mueller assures everyone that things are Gucci he goes home to his widowed sister in law Anna. Back at the village Dracula is in control of the town’s priest and is raving mad that he can no longer enter his castle due to Mueller’s exorcism of the property. Once they arrive at Mueller’s hometown Dracula decides he’ll exact revenge on the Monsignor by taking his niece, Maria.

Dracula puts a town girl, Zena, under his spell and attempts to get her to lure Maria to him but she’s rescued by her boyfriend Paul. Due to the failure Dracula kills Zena and makes the priest destroy her body so she can’t become a vampire. Dracula then just climbs over roofs, enters Maria’s room, and intends to bite her once they discern her whereabouts. Mueller catches him in the act and a chase ensues and the priest takes Mueller out, requiring him to receive care from Anna when he gets home.

Mueller requests that Paul the boyfriend save Maria and gives him a book that has all the protections and defeat methods against vampires but dies due to the wounds sustained in the chase. No one knows that the priest is under Dracula’s control so Paul enlists his aid in saving Maria. The priest then attacks Paul but is defeated by Paul and is forced to lead Paul to Dracula’s lair. They both try to stake Dracula but can’t due to one being faithless and the other being atheist. Due to this Dracula just gets up and takes the stake out. He abducts Maria and takes off out of the castle with both the priest and Paul chasing after them.

Once Dracula arrives at the castle he makes Maria take the cross from the door and she throws it below into a ravine where it lands upright. Paul arrives then and a fight breaks out between him and Dracula, resulting in Dracula being thrown over the side into the ravine and is impaled by the upright cross. Once freed from Dracula’s influence the priest recites a prayer and Dracula dissolves into dust. Paul has now regained his faith and displays this by doing the cross on himself after reuniting with Maria.

Despite critics' lack of enthusiasm for what they saw as just another Hammer Dracula film it is the highest grossing Hammer film. While critics felt that Hammer provided nothing that they haven’t already but in tackier fashion audiences didn’t find that it fell into as many clichés as anticipated. Audiences also found it to be modern with many regarding it the best of the series.

Blood of Dracula’s Castle (1969)...

...is taking us back to America; considered a B-movie, it's directed by Al Adamson and Jean Hewitt and written by Rex Carlton. Released by Crown International Pictures, the film heavily played into tropes in the marketing.

The straight forward plot of the film centers around a couple named the Townsends living in Arizona whom are actually Count and Countess Dracula and vampires. Due to some property changes a young couple, Glen and Liz, are coming to move into the castle which the Townsends are living in. They become stranded at the castle and rely on the kindness of the Townsends which is actually self-serving. The Townsends lure girls to the castle for their butler George to drain and create Bloody Mary cocktails for them. In the basement George and a hunchback also into the employment of the Townsends have women chained, ready to be drained of blood and/or sacrificed to a god.

Once Glen witnesses a sacrifice being murdered Dracula and his wife attempt to get him to sell them the castle which is not successful. A battle ensues which ends with everyone but the couple dead and having decided to not live at the castle after all.

It’s an exploitative installation in the overall pool of Dracula renditions that isn’t connected to other universes or adaptations. More than a handful of films like this existed at the time and are still made today, B-films that rely on the basic framing of the Dracula story to display a perverse version of vampirism without as much unique thought.

Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed (1969)...

...is returning to Hammer Films and feels like safety after the brief traverse to Dracula’s bloody castle in Arizona. As the 5th Frankenstein film it features Peter Cushing reprising his role as Baron Victor, Simon Ward playing Dr. Karl Holst, Veronica Carlson playing Anna Spengler, Freddie Jones as The Creature, George Pravda as Dr. Brandt, Maxine Audley as Ella Brandt, and Thorley Walters as Inspector Frisch.

Directed by Fisher and written by Bert Batt and Anthony Nelson Keys the plot opens with Victor decapitating a doctor in an underground lab. A thief interrupts this however and horrified he reports the incident with the head to Inspector Frisch. We learn Victor is using an alias to rent a room at a boarding house from Anna who is the fiancé to Karl Host. Host is a doctor at an asylum that Victor’s assistant Frederick Brandt had been committed to.

Victor catches Karl stealing narcotics and blackmails him into helping him get Brandt out of the asylum, which he must do in order to get the secret formula he needs for his experiments. Karl and Victor go on to steal equipment they need but are caught by a guard that Karl goes on to kill. Since Victor witnesses this crime he uses it to force Karl to abduct Brandt from the asylum, collecting blackmail victims left and right. Karl confesses to his fiance Anna about murdering a guard and worries that she’ll go down too.

After running into issues getting the brain and body for the experiment for seemingly no reason Victor rapes Anna. This has nothing to do with the experiments and the next day Victor transplants Brandt’s brain into Richter’s body. Him and Karl end up burying Brandt’s body in their yard. Victor, Anna, the Creature, and Karl go to an abandoned manor house while the police are investigating, the Creature still recovering from the procedure. When the Creature awakes he’s horrified by how he looks and is stabbed by Anna after he scares her and he escapes. After Victor learns that the creature is gone he is pissed and kills Anna before going after the Creature.

The Creature attempts to go back home but his wife doesn’t accept him and this leaves him wanting nothing but revenge on Victor. The Creature traps Karl and Victor inside with a fire he’s set but Victor manages to find what he needs and tries to get out of there. Karl stops him however and they get into a fight, the creature joining said fight shortly after. The Creature knocks Carl out and then takes Victor back inside the burning house to perish.

Cushing and Freddie Jones received praise for their performances and are said to be high notes of the film. The plot was well received despite being rather similar to earlier Frankenstein Hammer films. As the last film in this video from these 2 decades it leaves off on a note that could also sum up my feelings–there didn’t need to be a woman in the plot but the one that is included gets abused, raped, and then murdered in a rage. At the same time that the treatment towards women becomes more violent and unnecessary the outfits become more revealing, like sideshows used to appeal to male audiences.

Section 2: The 1970's

Overview

According to History.com the 1970s continued many of the battles for equal rights that began in the 60s. Alongside the battle for equal protections and opportunities for all America waged foreign wars that garnered protests at home, like the Vietnam war. In response to this progressive tug a “New Right” formed that claimed to focus on quote-unquote “political conservatism and traditional family roles,” the politics of today feeling like an echo of such times.

Pop culture started to become even more ingratiated with serious, public life after visits like that of Elvis Presley to the Nixon White House in December 1970 began, something commonplace today. Earlier that same year the Ohio National Guard had opened fire on students protesting the Vietnam War, killing 4 and wounding 9 others, the government turning against its own people. These 2 events show the contrast of the time between the public image and the reality of life in America. England faced its own upheaval with the start of The Troubles in 1972 following British soldiers firing on protestors in Northern Ireland who opposed British rule.

The Watergate Scandal with President Nixon then permanently marred the time, a scandal from the group of people claiming that others are being scandalous. The US federal government continued to lose support and confidence from both its constituents, allies, and foes alike during the decade. Much of what we recognize, know, and feel today either originated in the 70s or also happened during that time. Places like Disney World hadn’t existed prior to 1971 and advanced technology like calculators could be carried in one's pocket at an affordable price for the first time in 1973. Conflicts of this time were aplenty alongside the technological advancements, many of which we still deal with the ramifications of today or have people in our lives who went through the atrocities.

Events like the Vietnam War, Cambodian Genocide, the Jonestown massacre, assassination of Harvey Milk and subsequent attack on the queer community, the Three Mile Island nuclear accident in Pennsylvania, and Iran hostage crisis are well remembered and infamous today, the fears still reverberating and lingering from these events. A varied time produced varied media consumption, including horror films of particular style and appeal like that of Hammer and new adaptations like Blacula and Blackenstein specifically appealing to Black audiences.

Film industry and studios making horror films.

While the world became tumultuous both figuratively and literally horror and sci-fi movies boomed. Famous, iconic and genre defining movies like The Exorcist (1973), The Wicker Man (1973), The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974), The Omen (1976), Carries (1976), Jaws (1975), Dawn of the Dead (1978), Halloween (1978), Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978), and Alien (1979) just to name some of them. The seventies still hasn’t let us or the film industry go, even today 50 years later–still inspiring reprisals, reboots, and sequels of the same tales.

From the 50’s-70’s movies transitioned dramatically–from mostly black and white in the 50’s to mostly color in the 70’s, from modest outfits in the 50’s to more voluptuous looks in the 70’s, from referenced to gore and sexual violence in the 50’s to what would be considered NC-17 at the time as far as gore, sex, and violence by the end of the seventies. The norm of women being side characters to men’s stories continued but became more overtly sexual and Black people became the tellers of their own versions of horror tales like the original Blacula.

Individual Movie Titles

Taste the Blood of Dracula (1970)...

...is the first Dracula film that came out in the 70’s, directed by Peter Sasdy and written by John Elder. Christopher Lee is back as Count Dracula and shortly after this film’s release Scars of Dracula came out the same year, also from Hammer Films. Taste the Blood came out as a double with Crescendo, a psychological thriller horror film.

Starting off 3 men, William played by Geoffrey Keen, Samuel played by Peter Sallis, and Jonathan played by John Carson are at a brothel under the guise of charity. They are awestruck by a man who comes in and commands respect and immediate services. He’s Lord Courtley played by Ralph Bates and they learn he has been disinherited for doing a Satanic celebratory ritual long ago. Courtley instructs them to buy Dracula’s ring so they can have an unforgettable time. They agree, collect the items like a Skyrim quest and return them to Courtley at an abandoned church where he intends to perform a ceremony. The 3 men aren’t down for the mixing and drinking of blood that the ceremony calls for which doesn’t deter Courtley from drinking the mixture. Courtley is messed up by it and grabs William’s leg which causes the 3 men to beat him to death and run. The abandoned body of Courtley then transforms into Dracula and he vows to seek revenge on the 3 men who just killed his servant.

It’s revealed that William is a drunk who mistreats his daughter, Alice, in part due to her relationship with Samuel’s son Paul. Dracula hypnotizes her and commands her to grab a shovel and use it to kill her father. William is found dead the next day and when Alice attends the funeral she catches the attention of Lucy, Paul’s sister and Samuel’s daughter. Later that night Alice and Lucy enter the church only for Dracula to be waiting and he turns Lucy into a vampire. Samuel grabs Johnathan and they go to the church only to find Lucy in a coffin there and Samuel stops Jonathan from staking her by shooting at him. Lucy and Dracula awake before she is staked by anyone and she bites her fiancé upon seeing him, making him enslaved to her. She uses this newfound enslavement to order him to kill his father, Jonathan. She tries to beg Dracula for approval post-bite and he is not pleased, killing her.

Dracula intends to bite Alice then but must return to his coffin first. The fiancé is arrested for Johnathan’s death and when Paul goes to defend him he finds a letter from Johnathan that details how to defend against vampires. Paul then protects the church with a crucifix and removes all of the Black Mass materials. Dracula ends up inside the church after a chase from Paul and Alice and since it’d been restored he dissolves back into dust after falling on the altar with the correct altar objects.

Received rather well, Taste the Blood, is another successful Dracula film in the Hammer Productions series. The occult aspects played well despite earlier films receiving criticism from execs and board members about the use of quote-unquote “Satanic imagery” in the movies. Set in England this adds to the trend picking up steam: adapting well-regarded stories and characters to other settings and time periods.

Scars of Dracula (1970)...

...came out the same year, as mentioned before but is directed by Roy Ward Baker and written by Anthony Hinds. Despite an alternative director and writer Lee returns as Count Dracula. This film marks the most that Lee speaks since the original Dracula Hammer film and he’s said the performance more closely aligns with the novel than other Hammer Dracula films. Scars of Dracula breaks the continuity in the Dracula series by having the Count’s body in his castle in Transylvania for his resurrection rather than his ashes being in the London church where they’d been at the end of the prior film, Taste the Blood.

Scars opens in Dracula’s with a bat coming in through a window and hovering over where Dracula’s ashes are.

The bat regurgitates blood onto the ashes and once it hits the ashes a reaction starts and voila Dracula is now resurrected. He goes right back to murdering the locals which rightfully angers the villagers who get a priest's blessing to burn Dracula’s castle down. Dracula doesn’t die in this fire however, as he is in a solid stone chamber (palm to forehead on that one). The villagers, unaware of their mishap, return to find the women of the village are dead, slaughtered by vampire bats in the church–which is wild.

Sidestepping momentarily we meet Paul Carson played by Dennis Waterman, a sexually fluid man who is falsely accused of rape. After he flees he ends up at the castle and is welcomed by Dracula and a woman named Tania played by Anouska Hempel, a woman imprisoned by Dracula as his mistress who Paul then sleeps with for some reason. She tries to bite Paul when they hook up and Dracula appears, not bothered by Paul’s attempts to intervene, and stabs Tania in the heart for her betrayal. After Dracula drinks Tania’s blood Klove dismembers her and dissolves her in acid and Paul is imprisoned in the castle.

Paul’s brother, Simon, and his fiancé come looking for him, Dracula immediately wanting Sarah to be his. Klove comes to the aid of the couple due to having feelings for the fiancé and helps them escape. Klove is then punished harshly by Dracula and displays loyalty to Dracula again. Meanwhile Simon brought a priest to aid in getting Paul out of the castle and he is killed by a vampire bat, leading to Simon’s imprisonment with Paul.

In the center of the room is Dracula’s coffin and Simon is unable to stake him due to Dracula using his powers to knock him unconscious. When he wakes Dracula is gone and Paul is completely drained, brutally displayed on a spike. Due to an approaching storm Sarah has made her way back to the castle also and Dracula uses his bat to remove her crucifix, leaving her vulnerable. Klove then attacks Dracula with the knife that Dracula used to kill Tania but is thrown off the side of the castle.

In a dramatic sequence Simon, who escaped with Klove’s help, takes a metal spike and throws it at Dracula, impaling him through the torso but missing his heart. Since it did miss Dracula is a-okay and pulls the spike out, readying it to stab Simon with until it’s struck by lightning that causes him to burst into flames. He falls off the side after catching on fire and dies, his body still on fire and burning at the end.

Scars is not well liked by critics, many not taking to the overt sexual and violent aspects. It’s considered to be quote-unquote “one of the weaker films in the Hammer Dracula cycle,” according to Monthly Film Bulletin. The increased blood and violence didn’t go over well with a plot that felt generic for a Hammer Dracula film at this point in the series.

The Horror of Frankenstein (1970)...

...came out as a double bill with Scars of Dracula and is also a Hammer Films production. In a diversion from the norm however Cushing isn’t present and rather Ralph Bates plays the part of Baron Victor Frankenstein. Directed by Jimmy Sangster and co-written by him and Jeremy Burnham it’s the only Frankenstein Hammer film that Cushing is absent from.

Bates’ Victor Frankenstein is an asshole–he is a genius but also egotistic Lothario of sorts who is sent over the edge when his father tells him he can no longer do anatomy experiments. This is very Greatest Freakout Ever overreaction but Victorian so he sabotages his father’s gun so that it kills him. With his dad dead he becomes the Baron of the lands, inheriting all the Frankenstein’s had. With that money he goes to med school in Vienna.

In Vienna he messes around and finds out, getting the dean’s daughter pregnant and having to flee home. Back home he sets up a lab in his castles and begins experimenting on the dead in attempts to bring the dead back to life. As goes the Frankenstein tale he collects human parts to form a creature that he then brings to life. In this version the creature goes around murdering people. Unfortunately for the creature it accidentally causes its own demise and rids the townspeople of the issue at hand.

Part of the motivation behind Bates taking the titular role was Hammer Films attempt at making him a star for the company. This is noted as a reason for the changes to Frankenstein’s personality that made him far more calculated and methodical in his approach to his experiments that lack all empathy rather than erratic and selfishly misguided but remorseful of his wrongdoing like Sangster’s version of the character.

Dracula vs. Frankenstein (1971)...

...released in the UK under the title Blood of Frankenstein, is an American film directed by Al Adamson and written by Willam Pugsley and Sam Sherman. In very American fashion, rather than be about Victor Frankenstein directly it’s about a descendant of his, Dr. Durea played by J. Carrol Naish. One of the OG Universal Monsters himself, Lon Chaney Jr., plays Durea’s assistant Groton.

Dr. Durea is confined to a wheelchair and somewhat of a quote-unquote “mad scientist” who has a secret lab set up behind a place called the Creature Emporium that is on the Santa Monica boardwalk. The Creature Emporium is a sideshow styled haunted house exhibit that is part of the larger amusement park. Durea sucks somehow more than his forefathers because he and Groton are just murdering young women to use them in experiments rather than graverobbing or theft. Rather than bringing the dead back to life like Frankenstein he seeks to develop a serum that will be a cure-all that simultaneously cures his paralysis and allows Groton to speak.

The Creature Emporium employees are in on this set up, specifically Grazbo, the ticket taker. Zandor Vorkov as Count Dracula approaches Durea with a bargain to exchange Frankenstein’s monster for Durea’s serum in hopes it will make him impervious to sunlight and the monster can be researched. Durea does revive the monster and then the monster and Dracula are sent on an errand to exact revenge on Dr. Beaumont, who Durea blames for his pain and suffering.

A showgirl then arrives, Judith played by Regina Carrol, who’s looking for her sister. This is an interconnected side quest; however, as she ends up entangled with a group led by a person called Strange who she believes is involved with her sister’s disappearance. She's unable to get police to help her however and ends up dosed with LSD at a bar that causes her to be abducted by Strange and a girl to some older hippie. After agreeing to help her find her sister they all go to the Creature Emporium–a known spot that Joanie, the sister, frequented (which is weird, just going constantly to the same haunted house). No one helps them however and they are told Joanie isn’t there and hasn’t been seen.

Meanwhile the monster continues to abduct women for Durea and also murder police officers in the process. Groton saves Strange’s girlfriend, Samantha, from a bike gang only to take her to Durea’s lab instead. For some reason Judith and an older hippie named Mike, get together and break into Durea’s lab via the trap door. He informs them that not only are the missing women in fact dead but they are preserved in his lab and that they died frightened. Durea explains that their fear created a blood enzyme that is an essential part of his serum and taunts that he’ll have a great addition from Judith’s blood upon her seeing Mike’s death.

The couple flee and Groton and Grazbo go after the couple at Durea’s command but the ticket taker is killed after falling through the trap door. Groton is then shot by the police whom have just arrived and Durea falls to his death in a guillotine when he’s trying to escape. Dracula and the monster then arrive and Dracula hypnotizes Judith to have a reason to exist in the movie. When Judith wakes up she’s about to be turned into Dracula’s bride but luckily the monster is also in love with her and turns against Dracula. He removes Dracula’s ring and they battle, Dracula ripping apart the monster until the sun rises and turns him to ash. Judith is able to get herself free and run away.

The production originally wanted John Carradine to play Dracula due to his experience with the company but after being too expensive to hire they cast someone under a stage name for the part. Originally the film hadn’t been a monster horror film but rather a biker gang horror film and production had rented lab props used in the Frankenstein 1931 film. The movie is both Lon Chaney Jr. and J. Carrol Naish’s last performances, both being sick at the time of filming. Their involvement however is said to be an inspiration for adding more horror elements from Dracula and Frankenstein and downplaying the biker gang aspects.

It didn’t hurt that the title Dracula v. Frankenstein had been unused at the time–further making the decision to remove biker elements like that of a rival gang obvious creative choices. One challenge and solution after another made the production rather problematic and has garnered criticisms about the acting, the character portrayal of Dracula, and even the lighting. Yet another example of sub-par American monster horror that doesn’t even begin to stand up to the Hammer films that had come before it.

Dracula A.D. 1972 (1972)...

...is an attempt by Hammer Film Productions to create a quote-unquote “contemporary” version of Dracula, him facing 1970’s London settings and culture rather than late 1800’s Eastern Europe. Directed by Alan Gibson and written by Don Houghton the character is obviously based on the characters Count Dracula and Professor Van Helsing rather than the novel. Christopher Lee returns as Dracula for a 6th time in the series as well as Peter Cushing for the first time together in the series since 1958.

Opening in 1872 London the Count and Van Helsing fight atop a carriage that crashes and Dracula is then impaled with one of the wheel spokes and Van Helsing utilizes this to fully stake him. Van Helsing then also dies from his own wounds shortly thereafter, both defeated by one another. Fast forward to 1972, 100 years after this battle and a descendent of Van Helsing, Jessica, and Johnny Alucard whom resembles Dracula’s associate are 2 of a group of hippies hanging out.

Alucard suggests everyone attend a Black Mass, which we have seen in the series before and know it comes to no good ends for non-vampires. They go to an abandoned church where Alucard cuts a member of the group as part of the ritual, causing everyone to flee. Dracula resurrects as a result of the ritual and kills the member that Alucard had cut, draining her of blood.

The police start investigating once they find the members body and believe it’s occult related. The inspector goes to Lorrimer, Jessica’s grandfather and occult expert, who connects the murders to vampires, specifically Count Dracula. Lorimer and Alucard get into a fight at Alucard’s apartment and Alucard kills himself by mistake, another main character that doesn't necessarily kill anyone but death just befalls those that are coming after them. The Black Mass church is found by Lorrimer and he sets a trap to catch Dracula that Jessica, now under Dracula’s control, ruins.

Lorrimer thinks fast and throws holy water on Dracula, causing him to burn and then fall into a pit of wooden stakes he’d set. Using a shovel he further pushes Dracula into the stakes and he turns to ash. With Dracula defeated Jessica returns to herself and hugs her grandfather–a title card appearing “Rest in Final Peace” which feels like a cheesy way to play that Dracula is really-really gone this time.

The film is one of two that Warner paid Hammer Films to create that would be Dracula films set in the modern day. Aside from the characters the story is inspired by the Highgate Vampire case, a time in 1970’s England of reported supernatural activity at the Highgate Cemetery. It breaks continuity also with new lore about Dracula that places him in an entirely different country facing an entirely unfollowed demise at Van Helsing’s hands.

The attempts to appeal to modern audiences fell flat and transparent, like bought and paid for projects…oops. The concept doesn’t suck but the cringe definitely does, it isn’t hard to see where the blueprints for many horror, Dracula, and vampire jokes came from.

Blacula (1972)...

...came out the same year that A.D. 1972 did and is the first ever blaxploitation horror film. The subgenre Blaxploitation started around this time, the early 1970’s, and originally pertained to a type of action movie aimed at Black people taking Black stories back. By the 1970’s more abstract ideas of activism like reclaiming culture became larger topics of discussion in the Black community following the civil rights movement and the beginning-of-the-end to racial segregation in America. The genre and thus movies like Blacula are partly a direct response to the portrayal of Black people in race films of the 40’s and 50’s, as generally side characters, villains, or criminals. Rather than being the antagonist or in the background, Blaxploitation films aimed to put black characters as the protagonists of stories about their lives.

Originally the films had been produced for Black audiences in the USA but mainstream found profitability in the genre, being low budget to produce, and then adapted the genre for wider audiences aka White-Americans at the time. Two examples in a Wikipedia article on the genre are Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song 1971 and Shaft 1971 as 2 mainstream Blaxploitation projects often mocked for how brazenly offensive they are.

Produced by American International Productions, owned by Amazon MGM today, Blacula was directed by William Crain, one of the first Black filmmakers who’s actually still alive today. He is part of the L.A. Rebellion, a generation of young black filmmakers who graduated from the 60’s to 80’s UCLA film school. The main character of the film is Mamuwalde played by William Marshall.

Opening in 1780 Transylvania, Mamuwalde is traveling to Count Dracula’s castle and we learn that he’s an African prince who wants Dracula to help him suppress the slave trade. Dracula sucks so refuses and instead hits on Mamuwalde’s wife to which a fight ensues between Mamuwalde and Dracula’s people. Mamuwalde gets bit by Dracula and thus transformed into a vampire but Dracula curses him with the name Blacula and seals him in a coffin beneath the castle. Lula, his wife, is trapped in the room that the coffin is in and left to die.

Fast forward to 1972 and 2 decorators purchase the sealed coffin and open it. They are the first 2 people that Blacula consumes and he goes to spy on the funeral of one of the men he killed, instantly liking Tina, one of his friends. He believes that Tina is Luva reincarnated and another of the decorators' friends, Thomas, connects the strangeness of their friend’s deaths with occult lore. Scaring and chasing Tina, Blacula is then hit by a cab, and then kills the driver Juanita Jones, and turns her into a vampire. Blacula and Tina end up together after he explains everything, including Dracula’s curse and his vampirism.

Eventually Thomas figures out that Blacula is the vampire that must be responsible for all the deaths, knowing police are looking for his coffin. Blacula ends up taking Tina to a secondary hideout after the first is raided by police, having been full of vampires that Blacula and others have created so far. An officer accidentally shoots Tina and Blacula makes her a vampire to save her only for the cop to stake her. In response Blacula commits suicide via sun exposure and both Thomas and the cop watch on as a gruesome rotting of flesh occurs before he’s just a skeleton.

Only opening in 4 cities originally and a 5th one a few days after, the film had been marketed to black audiences with some questionable referencing in the materials like posters. It ended up being one of the highest grossing films of 1972 and is credited with inspiring other Blaxploitation horror films. While at the time audiences left with mixed feelings it won Best Horror Film at the Saturn Awards, the first of its honor followed by The Exorcist the following year. Following the success of this film a sequel was ordered to be titled Scream Blacula Scream and released just one year later in 1973.

Scream Blacula Scream (1973)...

...the sequel to Blacula is also produced by American International Pictures and Power Productions, but directed by Bob Kelljan and written by Joan Torres, Raymond Koenig, and Maurice Jules. William H. Marshall returns as Mamuwalde aka Blacula but we open on a Voodoo queen named Mama Loa whom makes an apprentice, Lisa played by Pam Grier, her successor rather than her son, Willis.

Willis decides he wants revenge, which is probably a sign she’d made the right choice in not picking him. He purchases Blacula’s bones from a cult shaman and uses them to resurrect Blacula but unfortunately for him the vampire bites him and Willis is not only a vampire now but a slave to Blacula. Murders ensue and Justin, played by Don Mitchell investigates these murders, meeting up with Blacula at a party he hosts to view his African artifacts, some of which belonged to Luva–Blacula’s wife.

Lisa ends up being Justin’s girlfriend and she learns of Blacula’s vampirism when he turns her friend Gloria into a vampire who tries to kill her until Blacula intervenes. He asks that Lisa cure him of his vampirism and barricades her at his lair under the protection of his vampire minions so she can work on that. Lisa finds and starts a ritual to cure Blacula and the cops plus Justin show up at the house and battle the vampire minions, including Willis, who is killed during the battle. Justin stops the ritual and Lisa refuses to proceed when she sees Blacula kill officers who have broken into the house.

Once Lisa rejects him he decides to Vampire Diaries style turn his humanity off, and attacks Justin until Lisa stabs Blacula’s ritual voodoo doll with a wooden arrow repeatedly, defeating him. If it feels slightly under-done to you, you wouldn’t be alone.

This film didn’t make nearly as much money for the studio and received criticism for being too similar to White-American counterpart renditions of Dracula rather than the creative take that drew in Black audiences. It should be noted that this film was directed by a White-American man and was ranked quote-unquote “Worst Blaxploitation Movie” of all time by a 1980 book on the subject. Receiving 1.5 out of 4 from famous critic Roger Ebert, everyone could agree it definitely had less dazzle if not more noted polish than the first film.

The Satanic Rites of Dracula (1973)...

...is one of the movies Hammer Films released that same year and is the final in the series with Christopher Lee playing Dracula but not the final Dracula film quite yet. Directed by Alan Gibson and written by Don Houghton the story randomly centers around Secret Service agencies. Peter Cushing plays Lorrimer Van Helsing who is approached as an occult expert to aid an off-the-books Scotland Yard investigation into 4 prominent figures photographed by an agent. One of the photos is of an empty doorway which ends up being Dracula, unbeknownst to the agencies at first.

There is a roller coaster of an investigation that leads Jessica, Lorrimer’s granddaughter, to discovering a den of female vampires. They attempt to feed on her but Murray, played by Michael Coles, busts in and kills one and escapes with Jessica. Van Helsing is with Julian Keeley played by Freddie Jones who is researching bubonic plague with the funding of a D.D. Denham.

The spot that Denham works out of is built on top of the place Dracula died in the previous movie and Van Helsing visits to confirm his suspicions that he’s really Dracula. Van Helsing tries to take him out but Dracula decides rather than killing him he will imprison him which causes Jessica to come looking for him. She ends up being picked as Dracula’s next wife and Dracula announces that he plans to usher in the apocalypse which shocks his minions momentarily, them not having believed he’d actually push the button and rather just tease it.

Van Helsing ends up staking Dracula in the end and the virus, which he does expose and start spreading, is cleansed in fire along with those infected after a computer smashing causes the fire to start. Jessica is rescued somewhere in there and in the end Van Helsing collects Dracula’s ring from his ash pile–defeated once again.

For being so powerful he is simultaneously so weak, it’s giving Christian bible teachings. This didn’t razzle audiences which is fair as it’s the seventh Dracula movie and the umpteenth Hammer horror movie about a Universal Monster. Christopher Lee was not the biggest fan of the circumstances surrounding the film. Although not considered as bad as Satanic Rites it’s definitely not loved.

Blackenstein (1973)...

...let’s get this over with: a Black soldier, Eddie Walker, played by Joe De Sue loses both arms and legs in Vietnam and his fiance Dr. Winifred Walker played by Ivory Stone, thinks Doctor Stein played by John Hart, can help him since he recently won a Nobel Prize for physiology and genetic coding. Stein lives in LA and Winifred sees the patients who have had miracle-like-successes in Stein’s care but notices some issues like a tiger patterned leg that Stein dismisses.

Despite Stein being a white-American doctor he has a Black assistant named Malcomb who takes a liking to Winifred. Due to Walker being abused by white orderlies at the VA hospital he readily agrees to take part in Stein’s experiments. Stein gives Eddie replacement arms via his special DNA serum and Malcomb tells them he likes Winifred only to be rejected. Malcomb sabotages Eddie’s next treatment and he becomes a Black Frankenstein but with a square afro and is also a cannibal. Doberman Pinschers end up killing Eddie as Black Frankenstein after he goes around LA killing victims in brutal ways.

The things that are made quote-unquote “more black” are things that don’t feel genuine, the whole thing comes off as a gimmick. It’s a ploy rather than a version like Blacula and Dracula. Having dogs attack and kill the monster at the end and the victims being blonde women it’s very clear what arena of tropes the film fed into and the ignorance that those are very clearly based in.

Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires (1974)...

...is the 9th and final Hammer Dracula film that is a martial arts horror film. Directed by Roy Ward Baker and Chang Cheh it was written by Don Houghton. Filmed in Hong Kong the director has said it’s a terrible film and made some off-color remarks about the kung-fu specialists they brought on.

Starting in 1804 Transylvania following a monk visiting Dracula. He’s a priest at the Temple of the Seven Golden Vampire and informs them that their power is fading and that Dracula can restore said power, which he asks for. Dracula wants to escape his castle via the monk’s body in exchange, and he does just that despite not getting consent.

A 100 years later, give or take, Van Helsing, a professor is lecturing at Chungking University about Chinese vampire legends. He talks about a village terrorized in China that was only about to get respite by putting a vampire medallion on a Buddha that caused a vampire to burst into flames upon touching it.

Frankenstein and the Monster from Hell (1974)...

...Dracula films aren’t the only ones that Hammer Films made during the 70’s, Frankenstein and the Monster from Hell coming out in 1974. Directed by Terence Fisher it is the last that he directed and the finale to the Frankenstein films from Hammer. Written by John Elder, it opens where the previous film left off, a fire at Frankenstein’s lab that he has survived at the start of this film.

Following the fire Victor, played by Cushing, works at an asylum as a surgeon and has weaseled his way into the position by blackmailing the director. Using an alias Victor continues his experiments and even finds a protege in a young doctor, Helder, who’s admitted to the asylum for sorcery and body-snatching. Helder isn’t aware but Victor is collecting body parts for his next creature from murdered patients.

The creature he creates is ape-like and he uses a homicidal inmate who attempted suicide as the base body. After putting the hands of a sculptor on his creation with the aid of Sarah, the director’s daughter who went mute after he attempted to assault her. Once the monster is animated and alive it’s angry and resentful in its mute state and starts killing people at the hospital.

The monster murders the director but is overpowered by the inmates who then destroy him. This distresses Helder but Victor brushes it off as just another experiment gone awry, already hopping to the next reanimation plan. Obviously Victor intends to murder people and steal their body parts which troubles Helder and Sarah, realizing that Victor won’t stop and has lost all compassion.

While critics praised the first part of the film they on a whole thought of it as a disappointing showing from Fisher. The film also failed to generate revenue at the box office, so all-in-all it didn’t go super well. Cushing succeeds in his part as per usual despite waning health at the time, but by this point it became clear that gimmicks and corner cutting that they’d gotten away with in the early days would always win the day in a Hammer horror film.

Terror of Frankenstein (1977)...

...is an Aspect produced film distributed by Independent-International Pictures in the US. Directed, written, and produced by Calvin Floyd and Yvonne Floyd. Based on the 1818 Shelley novel it opens in the arctic, Victor Frankenstein played by Leon Vitali is rescued by a ship run by a Captain Walton, played by Mathias Henrikson, whom he shares his story with. His tale begins with him leaving his life to pursue the study of science and alchemy in Germany. Experimenting on animals Victor attempts to determine the meaning of life.

Unsatisfied, he turns to experimenting with dead bodies and rebuilds a cadaver. He uses electricity harnessed by a kite in a lightning storm to animate his monster. This rendition has Frankenstein horrified by his creation and when the monster disappears he returns home like nothing happened.

As customary the monster follows him home and kills his brother, then explaining to him his journey to Switzerland and his desire to destroy Frankenstein. The monster wants a female companion and Victor agrees once they make terms. After the monster murders additional people Victor refuses to continue helping and the monster is pissed. The monster then murders Victor’s family as he’d promised to do if Victor didn’t create a female companion for him. Victor chased the monster and that led him to the arctic where he ran into Captain Walton.

The Captain decides not to continue on his journey to the North Pole after the cautionary tale about Victor’s pursuits. The monster catches up to them however and everyone leaves Frankenstein on board to deal with that. Frankenstein has a heart attack when he comes face to face with the monster and Walton tries to attack the monster only for it to escape.

Terror of Frankenstein has only 346 reviews on IMDb to put into perspective popularity and recognition wise where this film falls. The majority of those reviews fall within 4-6 as many of these movies seem to, not awful–actually quite decent, but it doesn’t push past that threshold of decent. One user wrote, “One of the few faithful renditions of Mary Shelley’s novel…That said, the novel and the film are long on talk and short on action,” on Rotten Tomatoes October 25, 2014.

Dracula (1979)...

...returns to the gothic elements that the 70’s Dracula films had somewhat lacked, with a goal of making it more romantic the film was advertised as a love story even in its tagline. Directed by John Badham and written by W. D. Richter it’s based on both the 1897 novel and the 1924 stage play of the same name. Frank Langella plays Count Dracula, a famous actor with over 100 credits across movies and television, most notably The Trial of the Chicago 7, The Americans, and Kidding with a production upcoming.

Starting in 1913 Yorkshire Dracula gets into town from Transylvania on the Demeter ship on a particularly stormy night which is very ominous. Mina Van Helsing is visiting Lucy Seward and finds Dracula’s body, rescuing him when the ship is in danger. After this Dracula visits Mina at Lucy’s father's house that is also an asylum, they love those asylums.

Dracula fits right in with everyone but a jealous Johnathan Harker, Lucy’s fiance who senses something amiss. That very night Dracula drinks Mina’s blood and she’s found struggling to breath by Lucy the next morning. Mina dies right there as Lucy watches on and after Lucy notices the punctures on Lucy’s throat and she blames herself for leaving Mina alone.

Mina’s father is Professor Abraham Van Helsing and he’s called over to assist in determining what killed his daughter. He realizes it’s probably a vampire and worries that Mina will become one also. Since Mina had been buried at this point he goes to her grave only to find she’s not there and instead they find her in vampire form. Van Helsing has to destroy her despite being heartbroken.

Lucy ends up confessing her love for Dracula at his new home and then becomes infected with his blood. After a blood transfusion she still is becoming a vampire and under Dracula’s spell but more slowly. Jonathan, and the 2 doctors decide they have to kill Dracula to save Lucy so they find his coffin only for him to be able to battle in daylight now. Dracula and Lucy make an escape on his ship in his coffin in the below deck headed for Transylvania and they plan to stake him but are stopped by Lucy. Van Helsing ends up getting staked and dying in the battle that ensues, but before VH dies he throws a hook in a hail mary and they hoist him into the sun once he’s hooked.

The year 1979 is notably busy with big vampire flics, and despite this Dracula performed well and received positive response to Langella’s portrayal of Dracula by many. Many liked the return to the source material and general tone that the 70’s had moved away from in favor of a more comedic and psychedelic approach.

Nosferatu the Vampyre (1979)...

...is another vampire film that came out in 1979 is Nosferatu the Vampyre, a remake (of Nosferatu the movie) that is also an adaptation (of the novel) written and directed by Werner Herzog. Klaus Kinski plays Count Dracula and the film is originally in German.

Taking place in 1850 it opens with Harker arriving for his assistance to Dracula and I’m going to leave it at that since the current Nosferatu movie coming out is a remake of the thing this is a remake of slash also Bram Stoker’s Dracula so it will be covered in the 3rd and final part of this series.

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Section 3: Connecting History to the Movies

One fear that seems to most closely align with and follow the Universal Monster movies across all of the covered decades is the fear of change. Similarly to today the 70’s, which had more UM movies than the 50’s and 60’s combined, is a time of marked change, a period of huge and rapid pushes forwards (and sometimes backwards) in culture, technology, and day-to-day life.

Right now my guess is that the correlation is fear of change, when that increases due to massive changes that cause societal upheaval so does the number of and interest in Dracula, Frankenstein, Werewolf, and general monster movies that feature more abstract villains. Monsters signify change, generally they either have a dramatic change that alters them forever like in Dracula and Frankenstein or they experience cyclical, uncontrollable changes like werewolves that cause pain and misery.

The fears surrounding women’s freedoms continued, especially when it looked like they would be constitutionally equal to men. In 1972 Title IX passed, an amendment that is ever present in modern culture wars surrounding transgender athletes but in actuality prohibited sex discrimination in academics and the Supreme Court ruling Roe v. Wade in 1973 legalized abortion in the United States, federally protecting access–another big issue of modern politics; huge steps of protection for females in the US.

Following the end of segregation many industries were slow to follow, particularly those under the entertainment industry umbrella like film. Many later Hammer Films feature diverse casts and notably Christopher Lee’s Dracula being particularly sensual and being an equal opportunist. Dracula found Black women and White women beautiful and desirable during the films, particularly those in the later part of the 70’s.

Despite the success that some studios had in the 50’s and 60’s using the same formula with slight variations everything has limits and the 70’s proved that the studios could reach that limit. Many of the trends took horror in a direction away from mythical monsters of the 70’s like Dracula to real-life monsters like slashers in the later part of the decade and into the 80’s, which that decade is known for. It’s easy to see some of these films and fall into the trappings of, “it was a different time then,” but something I found repeatedly were reviews from those times that felt the same about the more misogynistic, and blatantly gross aspects common in the monster subgenre.

It is compelling that the same story can be re-created over and over again in a short period of time but still increase in popularity and gross revenue but it reminds of the Marvel or DC Cinematic Universes sometimes formulaic approach to film. Sadly, I don’t know the exact reason. However, a colloquial saying, “If it ain't broke, don’t fix it,” seems like a great descriptor of the studio’s mentality of the time. Drive ins and movie theatre going were common activities at the time, and the horror imagery associated with those comes from this era. Monsters peeked around every corner but if one kept a crucifix and a prayer handy they are home free.

Monsters are also overpowered as hell, aside from the few weaknesses they have it seems they can’t be actually killed or defeated, similarly to the abstract ideas of the time people battled like racism, sexism, and the debate about the “best” way of life. The monster adapts to where it shows up at with the sole focus of murder for oftentimes no reason other than they are inherently murderous. The problems after World War II had less and less of a concrete villain, rather than a nation to attack faceless ideas took hold and it seemed the villain transformed depending on who you were.

What's next?

Following extreme changes in the 1960’s that turned the 1970’s on its head the 1980’s acted like a pendulum that swung in the opposite direction–mainstream culture moved to suburban normalcy. In rebellion towards that, various subcultures that are popular today like goth and punk emerged and often had ties or overlaps with the horror community.

In the next article and video I’ll be going over monster movies, that is the Dracula, Frankenstein, and werewolf ones that came out between 1990 and present day, including overviewing future productions. The format will most likely be the same as this video and more information about that will likely be on this site's homepage.

Thank you for reading and/or watching part 2 of this Monsters series!! I hope to finish the projects I’d set out to finish in 2024 (which is this series covering the history of big monster movies as well as the full video and article reviewing iZombie seasons 1–4 and the comic books) as soon as possible. A lot of the work is already done and it’s a matter of finishing the projects so stay tuned if you’re interested in either of those. I don’t really post on social media anymore so this site is the best way to see recent posts. Most likely in 2025 I will post one-off reviews of horror movies in written format on my site and maybe a video here or there.

Irregardless of what I do with Red Rose Horror thank you for reading this article! If you're interested in the video for this article or other videos visit the homepage or https://www.youtube.com/@redrosehorror