(James Whale, 1931, USA, 71 min.)

In James Whale’s touchstone creature feature, based on the Mary Shelley text, Boris Karloff plays our tragic monster, given life by prototypical mad scientist Dr. Frankenstein (Colin Clive). The second Universal monster movie released in 1931 (after Dracula, also playing as part of the Grave Tales sidebar), Frankenstein cemented Universal’s place in the horror genre and originated countless scenes recognizable to anyone with even the slightest familiarity with popular culture.