Having written about at least one movie featuring each of the most famous Universal monsters, Ghastly Gems has hit something of a crossroads. Before moving onto sequels, spin-offs, and other monster-related oddities, let’s start...
Once again, we skip ahead to a new decade to look at one of the more unique “core” Universal monster movies: 1954’s The Creature from the Black Lagoon. In the mid ‘50s, American moviegoers...
Even a man who is pure in heart, and says his prayers by night; May become a wolf when the wolfbane blooms and the autumn moon is bright. This iconic poem is...
OK, I know I said I’d save sequels for later, but I’ll cheat just this once, because the film is so significant (and technically introduces a new monster). 1935’s Bride of Frankenstein is the...
Just two years after James Whale changed the landscape of horror cinema with Frankenstein, he directed The Invisible Man for Universal in 1933, where he would focus on revolutionary special effects and subtle psychological...
1932’s The Mummy is a difficult film for me to revisit, as it was the first I distinctly remember being (very) disappointed by. As a child, I was obsessed with movie monsters as well...
Released the same year as Dracula, Frankenstein marked a pivotal moment for the then-budding horror genre. In sharp contrast to Dracula’s purely malevolent vampire, the central monster in Frankenstein is almost entirely sympathetic. While...
Going backwards a bit chronologically from Dracula, 1925’s The Phantom of the Opera offered audiences a memorably horrific adaptation of the famous French novel. This particular screen version is notable for many reasons –...
With Universal Pictures recently launching their “Dark Universe” series of rebooted monster movies (starting with Alex Kurtzman’s The Mummy), now is as good a time as ever to look back on the classic “Universal...
When Shin Godzilla (AKA Godzilla Resurgence) was originally announced in late 2014, it was difficult not to be skeptical. After all, Western filmmaker Gareth Edwards proved earlier that same year that a quality Godzilla...
