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Some of our favorite and most enduring characters in cinema are also our most monstrous ones. Count Dracula, Frankenstein’s monster, the wolfman, and others continue to be reimagined, rebooted, and reinterpreted in film, reflecting our own social and cultural fears.
This month, celebrate the spooky season with Bloomsbury Collections and a rogue’s gallery of our most fearful (and beloved) movie monsters. Learn about the many cinematic lives of Dracula, the design of Frankenstein’s horrifying bride, the evolution of mummies in film, and more.
Bloomsbury Collections’ Film & Media Studies digital library offers more than 6,000 scholarly and reference titles in subjects including global cinema, media and pop culture, journalism, and cultural history.
No villain seems to have the impact of Vlad the Impaler, or as he is more popularly known, Count Dracula. From audiences’ first glimpse of Nosferatu in 1929 to modern versions in the decades since, Dracula has inspired countless interpretations, homages, and re-“vamps”.
Read this sample chapter from Ken Gelder’s broad-reaching book New Vampire Cinema, in which the author lifts the coffin lid on forty contemporary vampire films, from 1992 to the present day, charting the evolution of one of our favorite fiends.
Who, or more precisely what, is the Mummy? While its portrayal has shifted over the years (zombie, resurrected prince, lovesick beast in bandages), the Mummy hasn’t always received proper appreciation in the history of menacing movie monsters. Yet over the decades, the Mummy has steadily stalked, lumbered, and lurched its way through cinema since its early portrayal by Boris Karloff in 1932.
In his book The Mummy on Screen: Orientalism and Monstrosity in Horror Cinema, scholar and author Basil Glynn explores the history of the Mummy movie, a genre sometimes overlooked or marginalized in critical work on horror cinema. Read this chapter in which Glynn analyzes the 1932 film, which brings horror, romance, and unexpected depth to a largely misunderstood monster.
With or without bolts in his neck, the creature created by Mary Shelley’s Victor Frankenstein is one of the most enduring figures in moviedom. In The Afterlives of Frankenstein: Popular and Artistic Adaptations and Reimaginings, history and literature scholars Robert I. Lublin and Elizabeth A. Fay explore adaptations of Frankenstein in film, comics, theatre, art, video-games and more, illuminating how the original novel’s myth has evolved since its publication.
This selected chapter examines the iconic monster in the popular imagination, and the multitude of incarnations that have come together over to create a genre and fandom of their own: “Frankensteiniana”.
The first time moviegoers saw Frankenstein’s diabolical bride was in Universal Studios’ Bride of Frankenstein (1935). Despite the fact that the monster’s terrifying love interest (played by Elsa Lanchester) only appeared on screen for five minutes, audiences were mesmerized. Since then, the bride has been portrayed numerous times with versions ranging from grotesque to gorgeous, and from tragic to comedic.
In this chapter from Fashioning Horror: Dressing to Kill on Screen and in Literature, Rafael Jaen and Robert I. Lublin explore creative interpretations of the bride, examining the costumes, hair, and special effects makeup used to reimagine her in a wide range of films.
Furry, fanged, and with a propensity for howling at the moon: cinema’s famed wolfman terrified audiences in Universal’s Werewolf of London (1935), gaining notoriety ever since as the tortured half-man, half-beast who succumbs to primal urges in the dead of night.
In this chapter from After Dracula: The 1930s Horror Film, Alison Peirse traces the history of the big screen werewolf, starting with Werewolf of London, cinema’s first full-length feature werewolf film and the first American horror movie to be released after the inauguration of the Production Code Administration (PCA) in 1934.
If you’ve enjoyed this taster of what Bloomsbury Collections has to offer, why not let your librarian know about the resource? Recommend it to your librarian here.
