Is a media franchise based on a series of horror films primarily produced by Universal Pictures from the 1930s to the 1950s. Although not initially conceived as a franchise, the enduring popularity and legacy of the films and the characters featured in them has led the studio to market them under the collective brand name of Universal Studios Monsters.
After a naive real estate agent succumbs to the will of Count Dracula, the two head to London where the vampire sleeps in his coffin by day and searches for potential victims by night.
El conde Drácula (Carlos Villarías) viaja a Londres y se instala en su recién adquirida abadía de Carfax, junto al sanatorio del doctor Seward. Allí, el conde se encapricha con Eva (Lupita Tovar) y Van Helsing (Eduardo Arozamena), mientras tanto, empieza a estudiar la reciente enfermedad de Renfield (Pablo Álvarez Rubio), alguien que tiene devoción por la sangre y se alimenta de ratas y moscas. Es entonces cuando Van Helsing empieza a sospechar que Drácula es un vampiro y decide darle caza.
Dr. Frankenstein dares to tamper with life and death by creating a human monster out of lifeless body parts.
In Paris in 1845, a mad scientist, Dr. Mirakle (Bela Lugosi), abducts young women and injects them with ape blood, in order to create a mate for his talking sideshow ape Erik (Charles Gemora, the gorilla performer).
A mad doctor conducts ghastly genetic experiments on a remote island in the South Seas, much to the fear and disgust of the shipwrecked sailor who finds himself trapped there.
On a snowy night, a stranger, his face swathed in bandages and his eyes obscured by dark goggles, takes a room at The Lion's Head Inn in the English village of Iping in Sussex. The man demands that he be left alone. Later, the innkeeper, Mr. Hall is sent by his wife to evict the stranger after he makes a huge mess in his room while doing research and falls behind on his rent. Angered, the stranger throws Mr. Hall down the stairs. Confronted by a policeman and some local villagers, he removes his bandages and goggles, revealing that he is invisible. Laughing maniacally, he takes off his clothes, making himself completely undetectable, and drives off his tormenters before fleeing into the countryside.
Newlyweds Peter (David Manners) and Joan Alison (Julie Bishop (actress)), on their honeymoon in Hungary, learn that due to a mixup, they must share a train compartment with Dr. Vitus Werdegast (Béla Lugosi), a Hungarian psychiatry. Eighteen years before, Werdegast went to World War I, never seeing his wife again. He has spent the last 15 years in an infamous internment in Siberia. On the train, the doctor explains that he is traveling to see an old friend, Hjalmar Poelzig (Boris Karloff), an Austrian architect.
Mary Shelley reveals the main characters of her novel survived: Dr. Frankenstein, goaded by an even madder scientist, builds his monster a mate.
Wilfred Glendon (Henry Hull) is a wealthy and world-renowned English botanist who journeys to Tibet in search of the elusive mariphasa plant. While there, he is attacked and bitten by a creature later revealed to be a werewolf, although he succeeds in acquiring a specimen of the mariphasa. Once back home in London he is approached by a fellow botanist, Dr. Yogami (Warner Oland), who claims to have met him in Tibet while also seeking the mariphasa. Yogami warns Glendon that the bite of a werewolf would cause him to become a werewolf as well, adding that the mariphasa is a temporary antidote for the disease.
After Jean Thatcher (Ware) has been injured in a car accident, her father, Judge Thatcher (Hinds) and beau Jerry (Matthews) implore retired surgeon Dr. Richard Vollin (Lugosi) to perform a delicate operation to restore her to health. Vollin agrees and is successful; he befriends the spirited and grateful Jean, in the process revealing his passion for all things related to Edgar Allan Poe, including his homemade collection of torture devices inspired by Poe's works (such as a pit, pendulum with crescent razor, shrinking room, etc.), and identifying the raven as his talisman.
''Dracula's Daughter'' begins a few moments after ''Dracula'' ends. Count Dracula has just been destroyed by Abraham Van Helsing (Edward Van Sloan). Von Helsing is arrested by two Whitby policemen, Sergeant Wilkes (E. E. Clive) and constable Albert (Billy Bevan). Von Helsing is sent by the Whitby police to Scotland Yard, where he explains to Sir Basil Humphrey (Gilbert Emery) that he indeed did destroy Count Dracula, but because he had already been dead for over 500 years, it cannot be considered murder. Instead of hiring a lawyer, he enlists the aid of a psychiatrist, Dr. Jeffrey Garth (Otto Kruger), who was once one of his star students.
Baron Wolf von Frankenstein (Basil Rathbone), son of Victor Frankenstein, relocates his wife Elsa (Josephine Hutchinson) and their young son Peter (Donnie Dunagan) to the family castle. Wolf wants to redeem his father's reputation, but finds that such a feat will be harder than he thought after he encounters hostility from the villagers, who resent him for the destruction his father's Frankenstein's Monster wreaked years before. Aside from his family, Wolf's only friend is the local policeman Inspector Krogh (Lionel Atwill) who bears an artificial arm, his real arm having been "ripped out by the roots" in an encounter with the Monster as a child.
The plot was not derived from Shakespeare's ''Richard III (play)'', but rather was written by Robert N. Lee (director Rowland V. Lee's brother) after reading a great deal of British history. George, Duke of Clarence (one of Richard's brothers) is depicted as something less than the tragically noble figure found in Shakespeare. Ian Hunter (actor) portrays Edward IV, who is not depicted here as the feeble, dying King found in Laurence Olivier's Richard III (1955 film) of Shakespeare's play.
Sir Geoffrey Radcliffe (Vincent Price) is sentenced to death for the murder of his brother Michael, a crime he did not commit. Dr. Frank Griffin, the brother of the original invisible man (named John instead of Jack), injects the prisoner with an invisibility drug. As Radcliffe's execution nears, he suddenly vanishes from his cell. Detective Sampson (Cecil Kellaway) from the Scotland Yard guesses the truth while Radcliffe searches for the real murderer before the drug causes him to go insane.
The film begins with the Egyptian Andoheb (George Zucco) traveling to the Hill of the Seven Jackals in answer to the royal summons of the High Priest of Karnak (Eduardo Ciannelli). The dying priest of the sect explains the story of Kharis (Tom Tyler) to his follower. The tale closely parallels that of the original film, except that Kharis steals the sacred tana leaves in the hope of restoring life to the dead Princess Ananka. His penalty upon being discovered is to be buried alive, without a tongue, and the tana leaves are buried with him.
The wealthy lawyer Dick Russell (John Howard (American actor)) funds the dotty old inventor Professor Gibbs (John Barrymore) to create an invisibility device. The first test subject for this machine is Kitty Carroll (Virginia Bruce), a department store model who had been fired from her previous job. The machine proves quite successful, and Kitty uses her invisible state to pay back her sadistic former boss, Mr. Growley (Charles Lane (actor)).
A small-town church organist named Scot Webster (Philip Terry) attempts to save his sister, Susan (Ellen Drew) from the clutches of big city gangster W. S. Bruhl (Paul Lukas). When one of Bruhl's gang members is double-crossed in Bruhl's rented room, and killed by a gunman, the man tosses him the gun and disappears. Scot is tried and executed. A scientist (George Zucco) salvages his brain and transplants it into a gorilla. Using the strength of his new, bestial body, Webster begins stalking the gangsters to exact his revenge.
A tragic accident occurs when a bus hits a high power line. The incident has claimed the lives of all on board, except for one Dan McCormick (Lon Chaney, Jr.), who survives because he is, surprisingly, immune to the deadly electricity. McCormick does a sideshow exhibit as ''Dynamo Dan, the Electric Man'' and is taken in by Dr. John Lawrence (Samuel S. Hinds), who wants to study him. However, Dr. Lawrence's colleague, mad scientist Dr. Paul Rigas (Lionel Atwill) desires to create an army of electrophysiology-driven zombies. He gives McCormick progressively higher doses of electricity until his mind is ruined and left dependent on the addicting electrical charges. This temporarily gives McCormick the touch of death, making him capable of killing anyone he touches by electric shock. After accidentally killing Lawrence, Rigas ensures McCormick's conviction to see what will happen if he is sent to the electric chair. McCormick survives, and with a super charge in his glowing body he kills several people, including Rigas, before running out of electricity and dying.
Larry Talbot returns to his father's castle in Wales and meets a beautiful woman. One fateful night, Talbot escorts her to a local carnival where they meet a mysterious gypsy fortune teller.
The residents of the village of Frankenstein feel they are under a curse and blame all their troubles on Frankenstein's monster. The Mayor allows them to destroy Frankenstein's castle. Ygor finds the monster released from his sulfuric tomb by the explosions. The exposure to the sulfur weakened yet preserved the monster. Ygor and the monster flee the castle, and the monster is struck by a bolt of lightning. Ygor decides to find Ludwig, the second son of Henry Frankenstein, to help the monster regain his strength.
The grandson of Dr. Jack Griffin, the original Invisible Man, runs a print shop in Manhattan under the assumed name of Frank Raymond (Jon Hall (actor)). In his shop he is confronted by four armed men who reveal that they know his true identity. One of the men, Conrad Stauffer (Cedric Hardwicke), is a Gruppenführer of the Schutzstaffel, while a second, Baron Ikito (Peter Lorre), is Japanese. They offer to pay for the invisibility formula and threaten amputation if it is not revealed. Griffin manages to escape with the formula in his hands.
''The Mummy's Tomb'' picks up the story of Kharis thirty years after the conclusion of ''The Mummy's Hand''. One evening in the fictional town of his Mapleton, Massachusetts, Steve Banning (Dick Foran) recounts the story of Kharis to his family and evening guests in his home (flashback footage from ''The Mummy's Hand'' appears as Banning tells his tale). As he concludes his narrative of the successful destruction of the creature, the scene switches back to the tombs of Egypt. Surviving their supposed demise, Andoheb (George Zucco) explains the legend of Kharis (Lon Chaney, Jr.) to his follower, Mehemet Bey (Turhan Bey). After passing on the instructions for the use of the tana leaves, and assigning the task of terminating the remaining members of the Banning expedition and their descendants, Andoheb expires. Bey and Kharis leave Egypt for the journey to the United States.
Some four years after the events of ''The Wolf Man'' and ''The Ghost of Frankenstein'', two men break into the Talbot family crypt to open the grave of Larry Talbot (Lon Chaney, Jr.), seeking jewelry buried with him, on the night of a full moon. During the robbery, the thieves remove the Aconitum buried with Talbot, and he is awakened from death by the full moon shining on his uncovered body. Talbot reflexively grasps the arm of the grave robber with a fur-covered hand, as the other thief flees.
The film begins with Animal training Fred Mason (Milburn Stone) returning from his latest safari with a horde of animals for his employer John Whipple (Lloyd Corrigan), owner of the Whipple Circus. Among them is Cheela (Ray Corrigan), a gorilla with remarkably human characteristics. Mason relates that she is the most affectionate jungle animal he has ever encountered.
An acid-scarred composer rises from the Paris sewers to boost his favorite opera understudy's career.
Hungarian Count Alucard (character) (Lon Chaney Jr.), a mysterious stranger, arrives in the U.S. invited by Katherine Caldwell (Louise Allbritton), one of the daughters of New Orleans plantation owner Colonel Caldwell (George Irving (American actor)). Shortly after his arrival, the Colonel dies of apparent heart failure and leaves his wealth to his two daughters, with Claire receiving all the money and Katherine his real estate "Dark Oaks." Katherine, a woman with a taste for the morbid, has been secretly dating Alucard and eventually marries him, shunning her long-time boyfriend Frank Stanley. Frank confronts the couple and tries to shoot Alucard, but the bullets pass through the Count's body and hit Katherine, seemingly killing her.
Dr. Alfred Morris (George Zucco) is curious about the effects of an ancient nerve gas, used by the Mayans during rituals of human dissection to appease their gods. He takes medical student Ted Allison (David Bruce (actor)) under his wing to assist him with his experiments in using the gas on modern animals. However, despite Ted's enthusiasm for the success of their effort to revive Morris's dead monkey Choco (who was earlier exposed to the gas and died) by using a fluid from the heart of another creature, Ted also has on his mind his girlfriend Isabel Lewis (Evelyn Ankers), of whom Morris has also become enamored.
Robert Griffin (Jon Hall (actor)) is nothing but a mad, psychopathic killer who should be locked away for good. Still he manages to escape from the secluded Cape Town mental institution where he has been committed, and now he is looking for revenge on the respectable Herrick family. A family consisting of Sir Jasper and lady Irene, and their daughter Julie, who are engaged in entertaining, and inspecting, Julie's new boyfriend, newspaper journalist Mark Foster, in the family residence. Later that night Julie and Mark leave the residence together, and Sir Jasper and lady Irene are left alone. That's when Robert decides to pay the couple a visit. Quite unexpectedly he enters the residence and accuses the couple of leaving him to die out in the African wild, injured, when they were on a safari together. The Herrick couple defends themselves, claiming they were told that he was dead and not injured, but Robert doesn't buy their explanation. He demands they give him his share of the diamond fields they all discovered together on the safari. Jasper tries to tell Robert that the diamond fields were all lost in a series of bad investments.
Kharis the mummy is given a sacred potion that grants him eternal life to search for his lost love, Princess Ananka, despite the unending curse that haunts them.
Dr. Gustav Niemann (Boris Karloff) escapes from prison along with his hunchbacked assistant Daniel (J. Carrol Naish), for whom he promises to create a new, beautiful body. The two murder Professor Lampini (George Zucco), a traveling showman, and take over his horror exhibit. To exact revenge on Bürgermeister Hussman (Sig Ruman), who had put him in prison, Niemann revives Count Dracula (John Carradine). Dracula seduces Hussmann's granddaughter-in-law Rita (Anne Gwynne) and kills Hussmann himself, but in a subsequent chase, Niemann disposes of Dracula's coffin, causing the vampire to perish in the sunlight.
The Southern Engineering Company is trying to drain the local swamp for the public good. However, the efforts are being hampered by the superstitions of the workers, who believe the area to be haunted by the mummy and his bride.
Count Dracula (Carradine) arrives at the castle home of Dr. Franz Edlemann (Onslow Stevens). The Count, who introduces himself as "Baron Latos", explains that he has come to Visaria to find a cure for his vampirism. Dr. Edlemann agrees to help. Together with his assistants, Milizia (Martha O'Driscoll) and the hunchbacked Nina (Poni Adams), he has been working on a mysterious plant, the clavaria formosa, whose spores have the ability to reshape bone. Edlemann explains that he thinks vampirism can be cured by a series of blood transfusions. Dracula agrees to this, and Edlemann uses his own blood for the transfusions. Dracula has his coffin placed in the castle basement.
Struggling sculptor Marcel De Lange (Martin Kosleck) is depressed about events in his life, and decides to commit suicide. Just as he's about to kill himself, he sees a madman, known as "The Creeper" (Rondo Hatton), in the process of drowning, and saves him. Taking the disfigured man into his care, he makes him the subject of his next sculpture and calls it his best creation. When critics denigrate Marcel's work, he has the Creeper start killing them. Marcel becomes obsessed with Joan, a beautiful female reporter who believes the deaths are related. When Marcel invites her over and she sees Marcel's sculpture of The Creeper, she suspects that Marcel knows the killer. Later, Marcel decides that Joan knows too much and commands The Creeper to kill her. The Creeper is reluctant to do, however, when he discovers that Marcel plans to turn him over to the police. The Creeper kills Marcel, and is about to kill Joan when he is shot by the police.
In London at the beginning of the twentieth century, Phyllis Allenby is a young and beautiful woman who is soon to be married to barrister and boyfriend Barry Lanfield. Phyllis is living at the Allenby Mansion without the protection of a male, along with her aunt Martha and her cousin Carol and the servant Hannah.
Larry Talbot (Lon Chaney Jr.) makes an urgent phone call from London to a Florida railway station where Chick Young (Bud Abbott) and Wilbur Grey (Lou Costello) work as baggage clerks. Talbot tries to impart to Wilbur the danger of a shipment due to arrive for "McDougal's House Of Horrors", a local wax museum. The crates purportedly contain the remains of Count Dracula (Béla Lugosi) and the Frankenstein's monster#Appearance (Glenn Strange). However, before Wilbur can understand, a The Wolf Man (1941 film)#Sequels and Talbot transforms into a werewolf. He proceeds to destroy his hotel room while Wilbur is on the line. Wilbur thinks the call is a prank and hangs up. Meanwhile, the museum owner, McDougal (Frank Ferguson), has arrived to claim the shipments. When Wilbur badly mishandles the crates, McDougal demands that the boys deliver them to his museum so his insurance agent can inspect them.
Lou Francis (Lou Costello) and Bud Alexander (Bud Abbott) have just graduated from a private detective school. Tommy Nelson (Arthur Franz), a middleweight boxer, comes to them with their first case. Tommy recently escaped from jail after being accused of murdering his manager, and asks the duo to accompany him on a visit to his fiancée, Helen Gray (Nancy Guild). He wants her uncle, Dr. Philip Gray (Gavin Muir (American actor)), to inject him with a special serum he has developed which will render Tommy invisible, and hopes to use the newfound invisibility to investigate his manager's murder and prove his innocence. Dr. Gray adamantly refuses, arguing that the serum is still unstable, recalling that the formula's discoverer, Griffin (The Invisible Man), was driven insane by the formula and did not become visible again until after he was killed. However, as the police arrive Tommy injects himself with it and successfully becomes invisible. Detective Roberts (William Frawley) questions Dr. Gray and Helen while Bud and Lou search for Tommy.
A strange prehistoric beast lurks in the depths of the Amazonian jungle. A group of scientists try to capture the animal and bring it back to civilization for study.
Having previously survived being riddled with bullets, the Gill-man is captured and sent to the Marineland of Florida in Florida, where he is studied by animal psychologist Professor Clete Ferguson and ichthyology student Helen Dobson.
Two Americans, Abbott and Costello, who are stranded in Cairo, Egypt, happen to overhear Dr. Gustav Zoomer (Kurt Katch) discussing the mummy Klaris, the guardian of the Tomb of Princess Ara. Apparently the mummy has a sacred medallion that shows where the treasure of Princess Ara can be found. The followers of Klaris, led by Semu (Richard Deacon (actor)), overhear the conversation along with Madame Rontru (Marie Windsor), a businesswoman interested in stealing the treasure of Princess Ara.
Following the Gill-man's escape from Ocean Harbor Oceanarium in Florida, a team of scientists led by the deranged and cold-hearted Dr. William Barton (Jeff Morrow) board the ''Vagabondia III'' to capture the creature in the Everglades. Barton is mentally unstable and apparently an abusive husband to his wife Marcia (Leigh Snowden), as he becomes very jealous and paranoid when Marcia is with other men. Their guide Jed Grant (Gregg Palmer) makes numerous passes on Marcia (which she constantly rebuffs), with Barton becoming paranoia about the two.
