Doc Rotten's Halls of Horror: Female Monsters

The most famous of Universal Monsters are the Frankenstein Monster, Count Dracula, the Wolfman, the Mummy and the Creature from the Black Lagoon. Horror icons of classic thriller cinema are Boris Karloff, Bela Lugosi, Lon Chaney, Jr., Peter Cushing, Christopher Lee and Vincent Price. Modern horror monsters are Freddy Kruger, Michael Myers, Leatherface, Jason Voorhees and Pinhead. It is easy to see that the horror genre is a male dominated field of cinema.  Most of the female actresses are given the damsel in distress role or the final girl role: Fay Wray, Julie Adams, Janet Leigh, Barbara Shelly, Hazel Court and Jamie Lee Curtis. From time to time however, audiences were awarded a monster from the fairer sex. With perhaps the exception of the vampire bride, female monsters are a rare breed. Here are a few to consider for you next Halloween feature viewing.

The 30’s and 40’s
While horror is being dominated by Universal Monsters, The Bride of Frankenstein (1935) is the arguably the most famous of all female monsters. Portrayed by Elsa Lanchester wearing brilliant make-up by the legendary Jack P. Pierce, the Bride was introduced in the sequel to Frankenstein, again directed by James Whale. In the story, Doctor (Ernest Thesiger) Pretorius forces Henry (Colin Clive) Frankenstein to create a mate for the Frankenstein (Boris Karloff) Monster. Universal tried to repeat the success with Dracula’s Daughter (1936), starring Gloria Holden as Countess Marya Zaleska. Holden together with Carroll Borland as Luna Mora in Tod Browning’s Mark of the Vampire (1935) lay the foundation of the lead female vampire character for years to come. Universal also gives us female versions of the Invisible Man in The Invisible Woman (1940) with Virginia Bruce in the title role and the werewolf in The She-wolf of London (1946) with June Lockhart in the title role.

The 50’s
In the Fifties, gothic horror gets trumped by terror from Sci-Fi origins and audiences are rewarded with Attack of the 50 Foot Woman (1958).  In this B-movie classic, Nancy Archer (Allison Hayes) encounters an alien space-craft and grows to be a 50 foot monster. Toward the end of the decade, horror would rise again in popularity (due in part to the success of Hammer Films) and smaller studios, looking to put a spin on classic tales, would provide another turn at a female Frankenstein and vampire. In Frankenstein’s Daughter (1958), the monster is played by Sandra Knight who starts out as a monster-werewolf hybrid before being changed completely into a man-made monster. In a twist to the drive-in features such as I was a Teenage Werewolf and I was a Teenage Frankenstein, Blood of Dracula (1957) has a headmistress at an all-girls school hypnotizing one the young students into believing she is a vampire. She not only begins to behave like a vampire but take on the appearance of the creature of the night as well. Ed Wood hires TV horror host Vampira to appear in his z-grade absurd classic Plan Nine from Outer Space (1958).

The 60’s
Hammer Films began making horror films in the late fifties and are a huge influence on the horror genre throughout the decade. Along with a multitude of vampire brides, the company also created some of the more interesting and unique female horror creatures to grace the screen. Among their entries are The Gorgon (1964) where Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee encounter Megaera, one of the three mythological sisters with snakes in their hair who can turn men into to stone with but a glance. Barbara Shelly is cast as the human counter-part , but Prudance Hyman steps in to play the hideous monster. The Reptile (1966) introduces a young lady, Anna (Jacqueline Pearce) Franklyn, suffering from a Malaysian curse that causes her to transform into a snake-woman. Peter Cushing would attempt to create a Bride of Frankenstein of sorts in Frankenstein Created Woman (1967), when he transplants the soul of a wronged killer into the dead body of a scarred but beautiful young woman, Christina, played by Susan Denberg. Alongside Hammer’s output, in Italy, Mario Bava cast Barbara Steele as the witch Princess Asa Vajda in Black Sunday (1960) in a variation of the classic Russian horror story, Nikolai Gogol’s Viy (1865).

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