# Frankenstein, Dracula, or The Wolf Man? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [November 1, 2009, 6:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/frankenstein-dracula-or-the-wolf-man/515920 "2009-11-01T06:34:33Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2009, 6:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/frankenstein-dracula-or-the-wolf-man/515920/1 "2009-11-01T06:34:33Z")
Of the three listed Universal Pictures monster films, which is the best? Criteria may include Story, Acting, Cinematography, Sets… basically anything. . ---
**Author:** ![Khadaji](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Khadaji](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Khadaji)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2009, 9:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/frankenstein-dracula-or-the-wolf-man/515920/2 "2009-11-01T09:36:06Z")
In my youth I loved all things monster - but Wolfman may have been my favorite. ---
**Author:** ![FriarTed](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/friarted/32/1052_2.png) [@FriarTed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FriarTed)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2009, 10:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/frankenstein-dracula-or-the-wolf-man/515920/3 "2009-11-01T10:10:23Z")
Overall, between those three movies alone- I have to give it to The WolfMan for having a main character with whom people could somewhat identify. You can’t relate that much to a reanimated patchwork man or his mad scientist creator, or a blooddrinking nobleman, his religious/scientist nemesis or his insect-eating lackey, BUT you can relate to an ordinary guy caught in a situation through illness, infection or just circumstances which makes him do horrible things against his will. Also, it has great atmosphere which stays through the whole movie. Frankenstein has moments, as does the first part of Dracula, but The WolfMan maintains it. Of all the Universal Monster movies, tho, Bride of Frankenstein- hands down. In this one, we all can relate to the Monster… “Friend? Friend?” ---
**Author:** ![bienville](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/4bbf92/32.png) [@bienville](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bienville)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2009, 12:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/frankenstein-dracula-or-the-wolf-man/515920/4 "2009-11-01T12:30:07Z")
Just put in an unenthusiastic vote for _Frankenstein_, wishing _Bride of Frankenstein_ had been on the list. With only those three choices, I could alternately vote _Frankenstein_ or _The Wolf Man_ depending on my mood at voting time. Tonight I was feeling _Frankenstein_. ---
**Author:** ![Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bosda_di_chi_of_tricor/32/16845_2.png) [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2009, 12:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/frankenstein-dracula-or-the-wolf-man/515920/5 "2009-11-01T12:57:11Z")
\*Dracula \*is simply better directed, written, & acted. _Frankenstein_ gets it for sets & FX. (Love that lab!) _Wolfman_ has best makeup. Of the 3–_Dracula._ Personally–I like The Mummy better than the others. ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2009, 3:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/frankenstein-dracula-or-the-wolf-man/515920/6 "2009-11-01T15:02:22Z")
**Bride of Frankenstein** is the best of them all, but **Frankenstein** is pretty good overall. **Dracula** is slow paced and very stagy, and Lugosi is no where near Karloff’s class as an actor. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2009, 4:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/frankenstein-dracula-or-the-wolf-man/515920/7 "2009-11-01T16:32:59Z")
I’m voting _Frankenstein_, since it’s had the most cultural impact. Werewolves can look like most anything, and while the Dracula movie contributed a lot to vampire lore, a lot of it came from the book, too, and there are still vampires that don’t match either. But whenever you see any modern depiction of Frankenstein’s monster, or indeed most other constructed-from-corpses creatures, they’re modeled directly from the Universal Pictures version. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2009, 5:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/frankenstein-dracula-or-the-wolf-man/515920/8 "2009-11-01T17:06:59Z")
I voted for _The Wolf Man_. As **FriarTed** says, you can relate to Larry. He’s not evil like Count Dracula, mad like Dr. Frankenstein, or a tormented child like The Monster. He’s just an Average Joe to whom misfortune has fallen. It could happen to any of us. I also think the acting was better in _The Wolf Man_. And that ties into another reason I think _The Wolf Man_ is the better film. _The Jazz Singer_, the first feature-length film with synchronised dialogue, was released in 1927. _Dracula_ and _Frankenstein_ came out just four years later. Those two films were technologically inferior to _The Wolf Man_, which came out ten years later, which had much better audio. But more than that is the style. Acting for silent film is different from acting for a sound film. I think this is largely because of the direction. There are techniques to build drama in a silent film that don’t always translate directly to a ‘talkie’. For example, the shots of Dracula’s mesmerising stare. Don’t get me wrong; I’m not disparaging those iconic shots. They’re part of what made _Dracula_ a great film. Only they were from a different time. As technology improved, such shots became stilted. They were very effective for their time, but compared to a horror film by the same studio made ten years later they seem a little stilted. The acting (and direction) in _The Wolf Man_ seemed more fluid. So I voted for _The Wolf Man_ because I think the audience can relate to an Average Joe more than they can to an undead Count, a mad scientist, or a persecuted monster; the technical improvements that brought about better audio, more natural lighting, and more fluid acting; and that more-fluid acting and direction. . ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2009, 5:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/frankenstein-dracula-or-the-wolf-man/515920/9 "2009-11-01T17:42:39Z")
Admittedly, I haven’t seen any of the films listed, but even still I bet I would vote for [The Phantom of the Opera (1925)](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Phantom_of_the_Opera_%281925_film%29). ---
**Author:** ![TWDuke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e495f1/32.png) [@TWDuke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TWDuke)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2009, 7:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/frankenstein-dracula-or-the-wolf-man/515920/10 "2009-11-01T19:18:51Z")
It’s been a while since I’ve seen them, but memory tells me that **Dracula** was slow as molasses, woodenly acted, and, once it left Transylvania for England, had few scenes that were truly spooky, let alone scary. **The Wolfman** left little impression on me at all. **Frankenstein** was packed with style and atmosphere from beginning to end. The heightened acting suited the gothic, nightmarish subject matter. (The notion that film directors and actors of the '30s didn’t yet know how to direct or act for film has never set well with me. By that point film had been a popular form of entertainment for over a decade and filmmakers had developed a huge set of tools specific to the medium. The '20s had produced **The Cabinet of Doctor Caligari** , but it also gave us **The Crowd**. If anything, they had a wider palette to work from than artists in today’s mainstream film world, where they are usual expected to conform to an artificial notion of naturalism.) ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2009, 7:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/frankenstein-dracula-or-the-wolf-man/515920/11 "2009-11-01T19:33:16Z")
> [@TWDuke](#): > > (The notion that film directors and actors of the '30s didn’t yet know how to direct or act for film has never set well with me. By that point film had been a popular form of entertainment for over a decade and filmmakers had developed a huge set of tools specific to the medium. The '20s had produced **The Cabinet of Doctor Caligari** , but it also gave us **The Crowd**. If anything, they had a wider palette to work from than artists in today’s mainstream film world, where they are usual expected to conform to an artificial notion of naturalism.) I’m not saying that directors and actors didn’t know how to direct or act for sound films; certainly not all of them. But there are certain conventions that are used in film, and those conventions change over time. When watching the 1931 films, I can clearly see the silent film conventions that were used not long before, and which were still being used as there were silent films still being made. ---
**Author:** ![lissener](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lissener/32/6139_2.png) [@lissener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lissener)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2009, 7:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/frankenstein-dracula-or-the-wolf-man/515920/12 "2009-11-01T19:36:08Z")
> [@bienville](#): > > Just put in an unenthusiastic vote for _Frankenstein_, wishing _Bride of Frankenstein_ had been on the list. Bingo. The only contender for “masterpiece” rating would be _Bride_. Still, of the three films listed, the best is _Frankenstein_. \*Dracula \*got the atmosphere right and is a close second. \*Wolfman \*edges a little close to unintentional camp to be in the top two. Of the three as _characters_, not films? Dracula, hands down. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2009, 7:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/frankenstein-dracula-or-the-wolf-man/515920/13 "2009-11-01T19:39:31Z")
> [@lissener](#): > > Of the three as _characters_, not films? Dracula, hands down. Of the characters, I’d go with The Monster.