Though not technically part of the Universal monster movie canon, this release became the catalyst for the studio to launch its long-running classic horror series. Already a legend by the time this movie was made, Lon Chaney decisively dominates this silent horror gem. Well-known from The Hunchback of Notre Dame as a maestro of make-up,… Read more

By most accounts, including mine, Van Helsing is a terrible movie. Overlong, cacophonous, and riddled with cut-rate CGI, as well as chaotic editing and cinematography. Yet it’s also kind of fun. The performances are over-the-top ridiculous. Richard Roxburgh is clearly having a ball as the cartoonish Count Dracula. Read more

Never before or since has Mel Brooks nailed a parody so precisely as Young Frankenstein. Forget the vulgar Blazing Saddles and the meandering History of the World Part I, Brooks and star Gene Wilder really did their homework on this one. Primarily using the Universal classic Son of Frankenstein as a template, they’ve mined every… Read more

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. Read more

A more direct monster movie than Frankenstein. What it lacks in complexity, however, it makes up for in performances, especially Claud Rains, Ralph Bellamy, Maria Ouspenskaya, and no less than Dracula himself, chameleon Bela Lugosi as Bela, the cursed gypsy fortune teller who passes his burden onto Lon Chaney, Jr.’s Lawrence Talbot. Chaney, for his… Read more

I’m going to vex a few people as I skip right over Bride of Frankenstein (the Batman & Robin of Frankenstein movies) and straight into the equally campy but slightly more straight-faced second sequel. Basil Rathbone is perfect as the disdainful Wolf von Frankenstein, unwelcome heir of the now completely redesigned Castle Frankenstein. Read more

By no means the first horror movie ever made (nor, in fact, the first Frankenstein movie ever made) but James Whale’s eternal classic is the fountainhead from which has sprung the modern horror movie. Though he would later go on to the make the deliberately silly Bride of Frankenstein (sorry folks, but it’s nowhere near… Read more

You would think that by their very nature (demonic worship of sorcery and witchcraft) all of the Harry Potter films would qualify for the harvest moon hall-of-fame. However, this third chapter is the most Halloween-themed movie of the series. In addition to the standard-issue witchery on display, this one highlights the classic Halloween tropes: Read more

One of the most polarizing films ever made. Though I generally disdain shaky camera work, this is one of the few instances where it works in the movie’s favor, primarily because of its documentary conceit. Devoid of music or sound effects, letting natural sound flavor the mood, and utilizing a ridiculously simple premise (three kids… Read more

A Halloween anthology that draws inspiration from multiple sources, most notably John Carpenter’s slasher classic and the Stephen King/George A. Romero collaboration Creepshow. It serves up four intertwined vignettes in classic campfire-story style. Yet where Creepshow had five distinctly separate scenarios, Trick ‘r Treat weaves them intricately together into one non-linear fright-fest. Read more