UNIVERSAL MONSTER MASH DOUBLE FEATURE

Featuring FRANKENSTEIN MEETS THE WOLFMAN and ABBOTT AND COSTELLO MEET FRANKENSTEIN!

Universal spent the 1930s turning Dracula, Frankenstein’s Monster and the Wolf Man into movie stars. Then somebody had the bright idea to start putting them in each other’s movies. This double feature catches the Universal monster rally at its beginning and its glorious peak: first the movie that brought two horror franchises crashing together, then the one that let Abbott and Costello hang out in the wreckage.

It starts with poor Larry Talbot. All the Wolf Man wants is to die. Instead, grave robbers dig him up, the full moon brings him back to life, and his search for a permanent cure leads him straight to the frozen body of Frankenstein’s Monster. FRANKENSTEIN MEETS THE WOLF MAN piles on foggy graveyards, ruined castles, terrified villagers, mad science, Bela Lugosi in neck bolts, Lon Chaney Jr. suffering beautifully and a cheerful musical number called “Life Is Short, but Death Is Long” before finally delivering on the promise of its title: two monsters beating the hell out of each other while the laboratory comes down around them.

Five years later, Universal decided what this situation needed was Lou Costello. Dracula wants his brain for Frankenstein’s Monster. The Wolf Man wants to stop Dracula. Bud Abbott doesn’t believe any of this is happening. And Bela Lugosi, returning to Dracula for the first time since 1931, treats the whole ridiculous situation with the dignity of a bloodsucking aristocrat whose evil scheme does not involve two vaudeville comedians. ABBOTT AND COSTELLO MEET FRANKENSTEIN somehow lets the monsters remain scary, Abbott and Costello remain funny, and both movies occupy the same frame without anybody blinking. Dracula turns into a bat. The Wolf Man goes through a window. Frankenstein’s Monster throws a woman out another window. And when the dust settles, Universal has somehow made one of its funniest comedies and one of its greatest monster movies at the same time.

Two movies, five years apart, tracing one of the happiest developments in horror history: Universal turning its stable of monsters into the world’s ugliest repertory company.