1940-1949

1940: Universal revives it’s Egyptian horror movies with The Mummy’s Hand.

1941: Desperate for a replacement for Karloff Universal signs up the son of a screen horror icon on a five year contract. Lon Chaney Jr’s first film is Man Made Monster or The Electric Man to give it it’s British title. This is followed by the creation of Universal’s newest addition to it’s ‘Classic Monster’ franchise. The Wolfman is released, once again Jack Pierce creates an iconic look for this new monster, the Jr is dropped from the principle actors name and Lon Chaney lives again. Bela Lugosi also appears in a supporting role.

1942: Universal releases The Ghost of Frankenstein this fourth instalment has Chaney as the monster wearing the makeup that Karloff had worn so memorably. The Mummy’s Tomb is Universal’s next release. Their third horror film of the year comes in the shape of Frankenstein Meets the Wolfman. The monsters are teamed up, Chaney plays Larry Talbot the Wolfman and in a twist of fate Lugosi who had turned down the role twelve years earlier plays Frankenstein’s Monster his career now on the wane he has no choice but to take on the part.

1943: Chaney plays the character made famous by Lugosi in Son of Dracula.

1944: Universal releases two more mummy films The Mummy’s Ghost and The Mummy’s Curse both with Chaney in the title role. It also releases House of Frankenstein using the tagline ‘All Together! The Screen’s Titans of Terror!’. The studio’s three most famous monsters appear, Dracula, The Wolfman and Frankenstein’s Monster. Boris Karloff returns as Dr Niemann.

1945: Universal’s Second Generation of horror movies come to and end with another monster team up House of Dracula. This film truly marks the end of an era, it is also the last in a cycle of films, a cycle that other studios will copy for decades to come. House of Dracula is also the last monster movie for which Jack Pierce will undertake the make-up duties. British studio Ealing releases The Dead of Night a truly eerie film famous for it’s talking ventriloquists’ dummy. World War 2 ends with the US dropping atom bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasak and the allies uncovering the Nazi death camps as the truth of the Holocaust becomes apparent. The war leaves many countries in ruins and around movies, possibly no film could be as horrific as the real world. The Soviet Union hangs on to much of the land it has ‘liberated’ from the Nazi’s and the Cold War begins.

1946: Bedlam a film about St Mary’s of Bethlehem the infamous Victorian Institution for the insane is banned in Britain.