I have written about the Universal Monsterverse, the first cinematic universe, extensively in recent months. In fact, my look at Universal’s werewolf movies was the most popular thing I’ve posted in quite some time. Universal horror (1925-1956) is still enjoyed and widely discussed by people of all ages. The Peacock streaming service from Comcast/Xfinity, which is the parent company of NBCUniversal, has just about all of the original Universal horror films available. Over the years, many of these films have been remade, reimagined, and rebooted. Hammer Studios’ efforts from the late 1950s to the early 1970s were definitely the most successful.
In 1999, Universal released Stephen Sommers version of The Mummy starring Brendan Fraser. Sommers made two more mummy movies (which we won’t discuss), along with Van Helsing in 2004. I recall an interview with Sommers where he said he was a big fan of the original Universal films, just as Peter Jackson said the original King Kong (which he remade in 2005) inspired him to become a filmmaker. In 2010, Benicio Del Toro starred as Lawrence Talbot in a remake of The Wolf Man (1941), called The Wolfman. Numerous filmmakers and studios have put their interpretations of the source material for many of these movies on the big and small screens.
In my treatise on the Universal Monsterverse, I started with lavishing praise on the Marvel Cinematic Universe, while criticizing DC Comics for their ham-handed attempt to emulate Marvel. I also mentioned the Stephen King multiverse, which was not brought to the big screen in a concerted effort the way Marvel and DC were. The reason why I have taken these particular steps across this bridge is because of Universal’s ill-fated attempt to create something called the Dark Universe. As a fan of Universal horror since childhood, the promise of such a thing certainly raised the hair on the back of my neck. But as films have trickled out and news of the future of the endeavor has been less than encouraging, I have been a bit disappointed. I’m sure I am not the first person to take a look at where things have gone awry, and I am sure I won’t be the last, but I won’t be reading of those pieces lest I form my own conclusions and make my own suggestions.
In 1925, Universal brought The Phantom of the Opera to life with the Man of 1,000 Faces, Lon Chaney, in the title role. Whether Carl Laemmle, Jr., intended it or not, the Phantom kicked off the dawn of the first cinematic universe. Gothic horror literature was a logical place to mine story ideas and after the success of the stage production, Universal turned to Bram Stoker’s Dracula for the first “talkie” horror film in 1931. Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein was next the same year. It wasn’t until 1932’s The Mummy an original screenplay was used. In 1933, Universal returned to literature with H.G. Wells’ The Invisible Man. What followed was a cache of mostly interconnected sequels and tales of the undead, curses, and science gone wrong on a scale never replicated.
In 2008, Paramount and Marvel brought Iron Man to theaters. Whether Jon Favreau, et al, intended it or not, Iron Man kicked off the Marvel Cinematic Universe. What followed was a series of mostly interconnected films with stories and characters mined from comic books. Whether it was the plan or not all along, eventually a schedule of movies was mapped out and announced and connecting lines were drawn. More than 20 films featuring origin stories and team-ups all led up to an epic finale. The best thing about this? Until we were several films into it, Marvel DID NOT TALK ABOUT IT. Unless I missed something along the way, unless I wasn’t paying enough attention to the chatter, I had no idea what the grand plan was until we were knee-deep in Avengers in-fighting. And then I don’t recall DC coming out with a press release that read, “Hey, we’re going to copy those other comic book guys,” but that’s essentially what happened and we all knew what they were doing. The difference now is, unless you are “in the know” as it were, we still don’t know where the hell that’s going.
With Marvel, we had two Iron Man movies, a Hulk movie, a Captain America movie, and a Thor movie, before we got the first team-up, The Avengers. Marvel was laying the groundwork, introducing us to the characters and the alliances, some on more stable ground than others. DC has tried this to varying lesser degrees of success.
So, what does this all have to do with horror movies, Universal horror in particular? Glad you asked. If memory serves, I heard rumblings about the Dark Universe before the 2017 release of The Mummy, starring Tom Cruise. However, right from the opening Universal animation at the start of the film, you knew the Dark Universe was going to be a thing. I don’t know why they chose his particular film or monster. I questioned the casting of Tom Cruise, but the story itself, up until a certain point is actually kind of serviceable. Until the appearance of Dr. Jekyll, played by Russell Crowe. First of all, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde wasn’t a Universal horror film to begin with, the 1931 film was released by Paramount and the 1941 version with Spencer Tracy came from MGM. The movie bombed and the buzz all over the internet was that the Dark Universe was doomed and then in short order, like Frankenstein’s monster, it was resurrected. The presence of Jekyll as the head of some monster studying and hunting society was supposed to set the stage for the entire Dark Universe as other monsters such as Dracula were hinted at and alluded to.
The Invisible Man released in 2020 happens to be the last movie I saw in a theater before COVID-19 hit. Elisabeth Moss (A Handmaid’s Tale) stars and it was a well-received and well-reviewed film. It is a modern update on HG Wells’ tale and the original film starring Claude Rains. Oliver Jackson-Cohen plays Adrian Griffin and Michael Dorman plays Tom Griffin, Rains’ character’s name was Dr. Jack Griffin. I won’t give away any spoilers but it is a tale of abuse, madness and paranoia, much like the 1933 film. The 2020 version currently holds a 91% Tomatometer rating and an 88% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes. The Mummy clocks in at 16% and 35% respectively, in case you were wondering.
I recently read that Bride of Frankenstein was up next, then it wasn’t, then it was. Again, resurrected more times than …
So, what’s gone wrong and what can Universal do to fix it? The first problem was making the creation of the Dark Universe obvious and public. The second was the story in the back half of The Mummy. Dr. Jekyll and his secret agency of monster hunters just doesn’t work. Even if it was to be the crux of the Dark Universe, save it for later. The third is the on again/off again public admission that the Dark Universe concept is broken.
What’s the fix? One of the reasons I enjoyed the original films was the time periods they were set in. Gothic horror and early science fiction just work better as period pieces. The novels Dracula and The Invisible Man were published in 1897, Frankenstein was written in 1818, The Wolf Man was set earlier than its 1941 release, even mummy films work better set in the early part of the 20th century because of the infancy of Egyptology. The 2020 Invisible Man worked because of the use of technology. Could other original Universal monster movies be updated for today? Yes and no. We have two examples of this – one that works and one that doesn’t. As much as Frankenstein predicted medical advances such as organ transplants, could such a story be updated for today? By the right filmmaker, in the right surgical-gloved hands if you will, sure. I would argue for the opposite. Keep the films, the stories, in the correct time frame. Find a way to connect them later. These creatures all keep finding a way to return from the grave any damn way.
Now, you might argue that today’s audiences don’t have the appetite, the taste, for period-piece Gothic horror. I would retort that you are incorrect. Just look at the success of some of recent series – Downton Abbey, The Crown, Outlander, and now Bridgerton. You also might argue that this ground has been covered already. And I would answer with yes and no. Dracula is the most obvious. No true adaptation of that novel has ever been produced. Kenneth Branagh tried with Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein with mixed results. Stephen Sommers managed to make a fantastic mummy movie in 1999 that was both original and called back to the Karloff film. Van Helsing is another story. Look at the recent Sherlock Holmes films with, ironically, Robert Downey, Jr. (Iron Man). Guy Ritchie did a fantastic job with period detective stories that sprang from the pages of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s work updated with breathtaking action. I actually liked The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, which featured appearances by Dr. Jekyll (and Mr. Hyde), Mina Harker, an invisible man, a phantom character (turns out to be Holmes’ Moriarty), among other literary characters. Some dark TV series have been pretty darn good as well, The Frankenstein Chronicles and Taboo come to mind. Ripper Street is one of the best. This can be done. And it can be done well.
Perhaps the most ambitious homage or love letter to the original Universal Monsterverse was Showtime’s Penny Dreadful (2014-2016) starring Eva Green, Josh Hartnett, Timothy Dalton, Billie Piper, Rory Kinnear, and Harry Treadaway. I get chills thinking about how good this show was and I am sad about how it ended. I think Kinnear’s portrayal of the Frankenstein monster was the best work of his career. Dalton plays Sir Malcolm Murray, ostensibly Mina’s father, who is trying to find his daughter who has been abducted by Count Dracula. Hartnett plays a character who is eventually revealed to be Lawrence Talbot, and yes, he is a werewolf. Dr. Henry Jekyll and Dorian Gray are part of the story, as is a version of the Bride of Frankenstein. There are witches, necromancers and vampires and all manner of ghouls and oogedy-boogedies in this fantastic Gothic horror universe. But it all falls down in the rush to the finale and the failed portrayal of Dracula. But if you love Universal horror, I do highly recommend this series if you can get it, 91% | 90% respectively on Rotten Tomatoes.
Victorian London has been the setting for so many great Gothic horror films and TV series during the past 100 years. There is no reason why Universal can’t revisit some of these familiar haunts. You never know what new terrors, and old friends, might be lurking around the corner in a creepy, foggy alley in the West End.
Was that the howl of a wolf I just heard?
Get the Knaak 