Universal Pictures turned out many classic "monster" stories in the 1930s and 1940s. Below are posters and capsule plot synopses of the ones which I think most prominently feature science fiction and/or fantasy elements.
Dracula
Frankenstein
Murders in the Rue Morgue
The Mummy
The Invisible Man
The Black Cat
Bride of Frankenstein
Werewolf of London
The Raven
The Invisible Ray
Dracula's Daughter
Son of Frankenstein
The Invisible Man Returns
The Mummy's Hand
Man Made Monster
The Wolf Man
The Ghost of Frankenstein
Invisible Agent
The Mummy's Tomb
Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man
Son Of Dracula
The Invisible Man's Revenge
The Mummy's Ghost
House of Frankenstein
The Mummy's Curse
House of Dracula
Abbott And Costello Meet Frankenstein
With the help of newly-enslaved Englishman named Renfield, a Transylvanian vampire named Count Dracula moves into a rundown abbey in England. After insinuating himself into high society, he begins preying on some of his new female acquaintances. Soon, a woman named Lucy is turned into a vampiress, and her friend Mina is apparently targeted as Dracula's next victim. Mina' father summonses an expert scientist named Van Helsing who quickly deduces that their new friend Count Dracula is a vampire. Following Renfield's tracks, Van Helsing and Mina's fiance track down the Count to his secret lair in the abbey, where Van Helsing stakes Dracula while the vampire slumbers in his coffin. With the death of Dracula, Mina's transformation into a vampire is averted.
A scientist named Frankenstein uses electricity to give life to a creature assembled from the remains of various body parts. Unfortunately (and unbeknownst to the scientist), the brain he has been provided with comes from the corpse of a murderer. In any case, the creature's resulting speech and intelligence are impaired, and its horrible appearance causes everyone who encounters it to recoil in fear - it soon ends up murdering several people, either deliberately or by accident. Eventually, it is trapped in a burning windmill by a mob of angry townspeople and disappears in the flames.
In 1845 in Paris, a mad scientist named Dr. Mirakle has his ape companion Erik kidnap a woman named Camille, intending to alter Camille's blood chemistry (through blood transfusion) in order to create a "missing link" between man and apes. However, Erik ends up killing Mirakle in an attempt to protect Camille from the doctor's injections. Camille's fiance, Pierre Dupin, eventually tracks the ape down and shoots him during a chase on the Paris rooftops.
In 1921, a mummy (the remains of an Egyptian priest named Imhotep) comes back to life when an unwitting archaeologist reads aloud the Scroll of Thoth. Later, posing as a museum curator named Ardith Bey, Imhotep tries to murder and then mystically-revive a woman named Helen Grosvenor whom he believes to be a reincarnation of his long-dead lover, the Princess Anck-su-namun. When Helen prays to a statue of Isis, lightning destroys the Scroll of Thoth, causing Imhotep to crumble to into dust.
After a scientist named Jack Griffin turns himself invisible with a serum involving the madness-inducing drug monocane, he sequesters himself in a village inn while searching for a cure. As his madness progresses, he eventually goes on a killing spree. The police eventually detect his presence by locating his footprints after a snowfall, and Griffin is killed in a hail of gunfire.
A Hungarian named Werdegast arrives at a castle named Fort Marmorus, where he intends to take vengeance on an architect named Poelzig who had betrayed him during the war. A Satanist, Poelzig plans to sacrifice a visiting female tourist in a Satanic ritual. After Werdegast learns that Poelzig has slain Werdegast's daughter (and Poelzig's latest spouse), Werdegast traps Poelzig and begins skinning his nemesis. After allowing the remaining guests to leave the castle, Werdegast blows up the fortress with himself inside.
Despite the flames of the burning windmill, the Frankenstein creature survives and resumes its killing spree. A scientist named Pretorius decides to build a mate for the creature with Frankenstein's help. When the newly-reanimated "Bride" sees the creature, she recoils in horror. The creature spares Frankenstein and his wife, but blows up the lab with himself, the Bride and Pretorius still in it.
In Tibet, a botanist named Glendon is bitten by a werewolf and is infected. Later, back in London, a mysterious doctor named Yogami tells Glendon that the werewolf transformation can be held off by the Mariphasa blossom. When Glendon realizes that Yogami is the werewolf who had infected him in Tibet, he kills Yogami in a fight over some of the blossoms. Later, Glendon stalks his own wife, but is killed by the police before it is too late.
A criminal named Bateman asks a doctor named Vollin to make his face handsome, believing that such a change will remove his psychological penchant for crime. Instead, Vollin disfigures Bateman, and will only make him handsome if he obeys Vollin's orders. During a dinner party, Vollin tries to kill his guests (actually enemies) with Poe-themed torture devices, but Bateman saves them. Angered, Vollin shoots Bateman, but before dying Bateman traps Vollin in one of his own death traps.
A scientist named Rukh contracts radiation poisoning from a meteorite in Africa. His colleague, Dr. Benet, comes up with a drug which will keep him alive if injected regularly - unfortunately the drug also affects the mind. Eventually, Rukh begins killing people with his radioactive "death-touch". When his mother realizes what her son has become, she destroys Rukh's supply of drugs, causing Rukh to soon self-destruct in a ball of flame.
Dracula's daughter, Countess Marya Zaleska, arrives in London to dispose of her father's body. After this is done she tries to curb her vampirism but fails, and is forced to escape back to Transylvania. When her London lover Garth (a student of Dr. Van Helsing) follows her back to Castle Dracula, she urges him to become her vampire lover. However, before she can bite him, she is killed with a wooden arrow shot by her jealous servant Sandor. Sandor is subsequently killed by a policeman.
Frankenstein's son Wolf moves into his father's old castle. He soon meets Ygor, an escaped hunchback criminal who leads Wolf to the Frankenstein creature, who lies in a coma. Intrigued, Wolf revives the creature. However, Ygor begins using it to kill his accusers. After Wolf shoots Ygor, the creature goes berserk until Wolf pushes it into a pit of burning sulphur.
When Sir Radcliffe's brother is murdered, Radcliffe himself is arrested for the crime. He escapes prison after Frank Griffin (Jack Griffin's brother) makes him invisible. Racing against time (before the drug drives him mad), Radcliffe discovers the true murderer is his cousin Cobb. Radcliffe causes Cobb to fall from an elevated mining cart, but before he dies Cobb confesses. Radcliffe's visibility is restored when he is given an emergency blood transfusion after being accidentally shot by police.
A mummy named Kharis is unearthed by an archaeological expedition. However, a priest of Karnak named Andoheb uses tana fluid to revive Kharis, and has it kill one of the explorers. When Kharis later brings back a girl named Marta (the wife of an explorer named Steve) to Andoheb's shrine, Andoheb decides to make Marta his immortal bride with the tana solution. Steve arrives just in time and kills Andoheb with a gunshot. He then destroys the angry mummy with a blazing urn before it can consume more tana fluid.
A mad scientist named Rigas makes carnival performer “Dynamo” Dan McCormick into an electrically-charged slave. After Dan commits murder under Rigas' orders, he is sentenced to the electric chair. However, when the switch is thrown, Dan's strength is recharged and he escapes. After killing Rigas, Dan eventually gets caught on a barbed-wire fence and dies when his life-force is drained away.
A man named Lawrence Talbot returns to his family home in Europe. While visiting a Roma camp, he is bitten by a werewolf. When he tries to explain his plight to his father, Sir John, the older man doesn't believe him. Later, while hunting for a dangerous wolf with a group of hunters (blamed for Talbot's murders), Sir John encounters his son in werewolf form. He kills the werewolf and is stunned to find it is actually his son.
After Castle Frankenstein is destroyed by villagers, Ygor sneaks away with the weakened Frankenstein monster to Vasaria to track down Frankenstein's other son, Ludwig. Ygor tricks Ludwig into implanting Ygor's brain into the monster's body. However, due to a mismatch in blood type, the Ygor-creature goes blind, and in a rage destroys the lab. Ultimately, Ludwig and the creature are both sonsumed in the flames.
Frank Griffin (grandson of Jack Griffin) is recruited by the military to act as an invisible agent in Germany. There, Griffin befriends a British spy named Maria Sorenson, and works to obtain secret information. Although he nearly falls into a trap set by the S.S., he manages to learn that the Nazis are about to launch a bomb raid on New York. Commandeering a bomber, he destroys the planes before they leave the ground and returns to America with Maria.
Andoheb recruits a new disciple, Mehemet Bey, and has him bring Kharis to Mapleton, U.S. in order to have him kill Steve and the other explorers who had defiled Kharis' tomb. Kharis accomplishes this, and then decides to carry off the fiance of Steve's son John. Bey is soon killed by the police in a shootout. Kharis is eventually trapped in a burning house, while John rescues his fiance.
When grave-robbers disturb Larry Talbot's tomb, exposure to moonlight revive the werewolf. After finding himself killing again, Talbot seeks out Malevy, the mother of the Roma werewolf who had bitten him in the first place. Malevy brings Talbot to Vasaria where they hope to ask for Frankenstein's help. Although Ludwig is dead, Talbot revives the Frankenstein creature. Talbot's ambitious doctor friend arrives and promises to use the lab equipment to destroy both Talbot and the Frankenstein monster - however at the last moment, he changes his mind and empowers the monster instead. The werewolf and the Frankenstein monster then engage in furious battle, but both are eventually swept away in a flood when a fearful villager blows up a nearby dam.
A European Count named Alucard (Dracula's son) arrives in the American Deep South. He secretly marries the daughter of a plantation owner, but she is then accidentally shot by Kay's long-time lover Stanley (with a bullet meant for the Count). Kay reawakens as a vampire and visits Stanley in prison, telling him that she intends to make him a vampire as well so that they can be together forever. Stanley escapes prison and kills Alucard by exposing him to sunlight. He then sets fire to Kay's coffin while she slumbers.
An unhinged man named Rob Griffin encounters a scientist named Drury, who tries out an invisibility serum on his new friend. When Griffin falls in love with a girl named Julie (the daughter of his rivals the Herricks), he realizes that he must become visible again. In order to accomplish this, he drains Dr. Drury's blood into his own body. However, this treatment soon needs to be repeated, and so he tries to drain the blood from Julie's fiance, Mark. However, Drury's dog arrives and kills Griffin despite his invisibility.
Andoheb orders a second acolyte, Yousef Bey, to go to America to try to reunite Kharis with his lost love, Princess Ananka. Meanwhile, in Mapleton, a professor is killed by a roaming Kharis when he tries brewing some tana leaves. Bey soon arrives and brings Kharis to the mummy of Princess Ananka, but his lost lover's mummy crumbles. Bey reasons that her spirit has flown to a new host body, which turns out to be that of an Egyptian student named Amina. Bey and Kharis kidnap Amina, but when Bey decides to take her for himself, Kharis kills him. Kharis then takes the rapidly-aging Amina to the swamp and brings her down with him into the depths.
After a mad scientist named Niemann and his hunchback ally Daniel escape from prison, they soon come across the skeleton of Dracula. After Niemann removes the stake from Dracula's chest, the vampire revives. Niemann has his new ally kill one of his old enemies, but in the ensuing chase the vampire is killed by sunlight. Undeterred, Niemann and Daniel then go to Vasaria where they thaw out Talbot and the Frankenstein monster. Niemann at first promises to help Talbot end his life, but soon becomes obsessed with kidnapping and torturing his old enemies. Also feeling betrayed by his ally (who had promised to fix his hunched back), Daniel attacks Niemann, but is killed by the monster. Meanwhile, Talbot is killed by a silver bullet fired from a young female admirer. When the villagers eventually descend on Niemann's lab, Niemann and the Frankenstein monster are driven into a bog of quicksand.
Twenty-five years after his last appearance, Kharis is uncovered from a Louisiana swamp. While two Egyptian cultists tends to Kharis, Ananka also soon revives from the drained marsh bed. With her memories in fragments, Ananka joins an archaeological team in the area. Kharis goes on a rampage, killing some locals. Ananka is eventually captured and brought to the cultists' monastery, where she is given tana fluid. The two cultists then get into a fight where one is killed by the other. Kharis kills the remaining cultist in anger and in the process causes the entire monastery to cave in. The archaeologists eventually dig out an old mummy which they identify as Ananka's remains.
Count Dracula asks a Vasarian scientist named Edleman to cure him of vampirism. Talbot soon arrives and asks to be cured as well. While searching for Talbot after one of his transformations, Edleman discovers a sea cave holding the remains of the Frankenstein monster (as well as Niemann). He brings the monster back to his lab in order to examine it later. However, Dracula has a change of heart about his cure when he falls in love with Edleman's assistant, and reverses a blood transfusion to infect Edleman with his own blood. Edleman then kills Dracula by putting his coffin in sunlight. Later, he successfully performs an operation on Talbot to cure him of lycanthropy, but also undergoes a Hyde-like transformation of his own. Talbot is eventually forced to shoot Edleman, but not before Edleman revives the Frankenstein monster. When the monster goes on a rampage, Talbot sets the lab on fire, destroying everything within.
Two baggage clerks (Chick and Wilbur) deliver some crates purportedly containing the bodies of the Frankenstein monster and Dracula to a horror sideshow. Before the owner arrives, Dracula and the monster depart to rendezvous with a doctor named Sandra Mornay at her castle. Mornay intends to place Wilbur's brain in the monster's body so that Dracula can use it as a semi-intelligent slave. Talbot also arrives in America and warns Chick and Wilbur of the danger presented by Dracula. When Sandra decides to postpone the operation, Dracula turns her into his vampire slave. After Dracula kidnaps Wilbur back to Mornay's castle, Chick mounts a rescue with Talbot. During the struggle, Talbot turns into a werewolf and drags Dracula over a cliff into the sea. After the Frankenstein monster kills Mornay, it is set on fire with gasoline as Chick and Wilbur row away from Mornay's castle.
