Name a recent horror movie you’ve seen. Any one. Because there’s a 100% likelihood that whatever it was wouldn’t have been made without the Universal Monsters. Movies like Dracula, Frankenstein, The Wolf Man, Bride of Frankenstein, and others paved the way for the horror movies of today. Modern audiences, especially the current generation, are more apt to enjoy the black-and-white stylings. That’s something that’s true, but there’s even more to dive into about why these films are just so important.
Well we’re left with the original Universal Monsters and the hope for a better tomorrow. That hope comes from watching these original films and realizing how simple, yet masterful, they all are.
The Simplicity Is A Strength
Taking a look at the runtimes and the content of these movies, they’re pretty tame by today’s standards. If you’re out there laughing at the Terrifier movies, you might think that Dracula is a baby’s toy. But there’s more in these classic movies that shares DNA with modern movies than you think. Movies like Backrooms, Nosferatu, and even Obsession have bits and pieces of these classic films. It seems the style for horror movies has started repeating itself from those movies of the 20s and 30s coming back in well, the 2020s.
Dracula was a very early “talkie”. So the film runs halfway between a sound picture and a silent picture. There are long stretches of silence with only ambient sound for the audience. The films might seem tame and even unspectacular to today’s audiences, but they add something to horror that’s missing these days. You’re missing simplicity. For so long, your horror film had to go over the top of others. Why do you think that original films in a series are always considered the best? They have nothing to prove. The original A Nightmare On Elm Street was just about the idea of a killer being able to get you in your dreams. It’s a simplistic concept that made for a great franchise.
From the very first film, Phantom of the Opera starring Lon Chaney, you had a simplistic quality that made these Universal films feel like dreams. That feeling is what gives the Universal Monsters their power. When you take them and add an overflowing budget, gargantuan special effects, and, quite frankly, A-list actors, you take a lot away from that. The fact that Boris Karloff was buried under all the Frankenstein makeup is what made that role special. It was a speechless role that he nailed. Same thing with Bela Lugosi and Dracula.
Overall, the Universal Monsters could teach us a bit more than we think. Film is cyclical after all, so there are plenty of things we can learn from these old movies. In a hectic and fast-paced time, these movies are also a quick watch. In the time it takes to watch a modern movie, you can watch like 1.5 Universal Monsters movies. It also lets you take a trip back to think about what audiences at that time were thinking and seeing. Audiences change, and tastes evolve, but at a certain point, the classics still win out.
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