12 of 28

Write now Article Tools

You will note about me, if you read my biography or some of my articles, that I absolutely love movies. I probably have about 400 DVDs in my collection. I watch film from all genres. Horror, especially monster movies, have always been my favorite. Monster movies will always be my favorite category of film.
The first monster movie I saw was Dracula. Thanks mom! To this day, over 20 years later, elements of that movie have stayed with me. Besides movies, I also love the vampire lore. I don't love many of the movie's deviation from Bram Stoker's "Dracula." It bothers me that Dracula must sleep by day; that Van Helsing is portrayed as Dr. Seward's colleague, not his instructor; that the Count is killed in London, not Transylvania, and that he dies by a wooden stake. Some of these deviations make the movie hard for me to watch. But Lugosi's Count is one nasty monster.

The movie poster touted the film as "a nightmare of horror." Lugosi delivered that terror consistently. For me, his portrayal, is completely on point. I respect this movie even more now, than when I originally viewed it. Lugosi had to pull off scaring the audience with acting. He was not aided by the "special effects of 1931." He was able to touch on emotions that live in our fears, and manifest in our nightmares. He looked creepy. His Hungarian accent made him sound creepy. In his scenes with Helen Chandler (Mina), he stayed in an uncomfortably close proximity. In their scenes, Lugosi kept an uncomfortable physical contact. I felt in his portrayal that he HAD to have her. As a woman, it represented for me then, and now, that even men who seem to want us for all the right reasons can really be true bad boys. The most salient part of the film remains when Dracula turns Reinfield into one of his thralls. Bye-Bye free will. Hello mindlessly serving a monster. Yikes!
Another monster who stays with me is Frankenstein. Boris Karloff is simply brilliant in this movie, also an adapted book done in 1931. (This role, by the way, was originally offered to Lugosi, but he turned it down.) Karloff makes the monster scary but sympathetic. He does horrible things, but he can't help it. He is as much a victim as those he kills across the Bavarian countryside. He is Dr. Frankenstein's victim. Karloff's unnamed monster didn't ask to be reborn. He certainly didn't ask to get the brain with "the distinct degeneration of the middle frontal lobe." But, even if he had been recreated with a normal brain, the monster

• 1
• 2
• 3
• next page >>

Add your voice

Know something about Scariest movie monsters: The images that stay with you?
We want to hear your view. Write now!