In observance of that autumn spell when we celebrate the primal instinct of fear, Rainestorm highlights 31 days of spooky scares to season the eerie atmosphere of Halloween.

This week we pay obligatory homage to the studio that brought some of finest thrills and greatest cinematic cheese to the 20th century. It’s Universal Monster Week!

Reign of terror: 1943

The horror… the horror: Arguably the best of the monster mash-ups. It begins with the awakening of presumed-dead wolf man, Larry Talbot, and follows him to a London asylum, from whence he then travels across Europe to the fictional town of Vasalia (which has inexplicably become Frankenstein’s home) to find a cure for his lycanthropy. The Frankenstein monster doesn’t get a lot of screen time here, with the narrative focusing almost solely on Talbot’s quest to be free of his curse. However, the buildup to their showdown is nicely drawn out, with the addition of devilishly handsome and eager-to-help Dr. Mannering as the prototype mad doctor that would follow in House of Frankenstein and House of Dracula.

Halloween haunt: The usual suspects: a deserted graveyard in the dead of night; the dilapidated Castle Frankenstein. This time we get a peek into the icy(?) catacombs of the fortress, where Larry Talbot first encounters the monster.

Tastiest treat: The final showdown, of course. Especially the wolf man’s leap from the laboratory equipment as the room is suddenly flooded with water from a nearby damn.

Check the candy for: The famous Frankenstein walk, with arms outstretched, originated in this film. In Ghost of Frankenstein, Igor’s (Bela Lugosi) brain is transferred into the monster but it renders him blind. As a result, he walks throughout the film with his arms forward. This was explained in the monster’s dialogue, all of which was ultimately cut from the film.

Devilish discourse: “He is not insane. He simply wants to die.”

Goes great with: House of Frankenstein (1944). What better way to follow-up the first Universal monster mash-up than with its successor, which attempted to cram every monster save The Mummy and The Invisible Man into one film.