The Universal Monsters Movies - Ranked From Worst To Best

4. Dracula

Played by: Bela Lugosi (Dracula, Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein), Lon Chaney Jr. (Son of Dracula), John Carradine (House of Frankenstein, House of Dracula) Who is he? Although the lavish silent Phantom of the Opera had preceeded it, it was Dracula that really kicked off Universal's reputation as monster film makers. Producer Laemmle had wanted something similarly grandiose for Dracula, but the budget wasn't there. Instead director Tod Browning's film was adapted from the hit Broadway play by John L. Balderston and Hamilton Deane. Consequently, Dracula feels stage bound, small scale and somewhat lacking in dynamism. For the titular count, Laemmle had wanted a name actor, but ended up going with Bela Lugosi from the stage show, purely because Lugosi came very cheap. He would not appear in any of the sequels but the comedy Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein 17 years later, but Lugosi still became the iconic version of Dracula in all future pop culture references. That is not to say that Lugosi gives a great performance, however. Always a hammy actor with a limited range, Lugosi is at least the only big screen Dracula to share the count's Hungarian nationality, but his thick accent has become the stuff of a thousand parodies. After Lugosi, Universal (like Hammer in their first Dracula sequel Brides of Dracula) followed the film with a further Dracula-free adventure for Van Helsing. Gloria Holden is a more impressive performer than Lugosi as the lesbian-tinged Dracula's Daughter, but the script remains stolid and talky. From then it was business as usual with Lon Chaney Jr., again, when Dracula returned from the grave in Son of Dracula. After the classic era: Universal have generally seen Dracula as the jewel in their monster crown. As such, the studio have returned to Transylvania more than any other monster setting. After Christopher Lee made a more imposing and seductive Dracula in Hammer's own monster cycle in the 60s and 70s, Universal finally got to make their opulent period romantic version of the story in 1979. The studio's first attempt at rebooting their monsters since the classic era, it featured Frank Langella's Dracula in an all star cast including Laurence Olivier and Donald Pleasance. Up against Werner Herzog's Nosferatu and parody Love At First Bite at the box office, Dracula flopped on release but its influence on the likes of Francis Ford Coppola's version of the story is obvious. In the 21st century, Universal used Dracula as the main antagonist in the ill fated Van Helsing with Richard Roxburgh arguably the worst screen Dracula there has been. More recently, Dracula Untold sought to reboot the story as a historical epic based on Vlad the Impaler, with The Hobbit's Luke Evans as a more noble Dracula. Despite mediocre reviews, Universal have announced it as the first film in a new shared monster universe.