.)
It feels almost impossible to judge the cultural impact of the Universal Monster movies as they began releasing in the United States almost a hundred years ago. Looking at the box office figures and the interconnected universe they spawned over the 1930s and ‘40s, it was something akin to the Marvel Cinematic Universe or
Star Wars for audiences of its day. The
Frankenstein films, for the most part, starred Boris Karloff and were very loose interpretations of the classic Mary Shelley classic from 1818. Its themes of creating life after death and playing God were powerful and the films brought these ideas to easily shocked or offended audiences in the time before the Production Code. It even had to be edited down for blasphemy in some parts of the country because of Dr. Frankenstein’s bold statement that he’s replaced God by giving life to the monster.