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Although Universal Pictures’ early 20th century horror movies brought to prominence an array of now-iconic fiends, the 1931 film Frankenstein also followed its gothic-novel inspiration in clarifying that on occasion, the real wrongdoing isn't perpetrated by a horrific creature of the night. Often it’s the work of a physician who’s become unhinged with goth-science power.

A couple of independent chilling pictures from this period serve as a particularly engaging two-film lineup for fans of monsters and/or deranged research: Doctor X from 1932, and Mad Love from 1935.

Doctor X: Early Era Horror and Early Color

Doctor X — that receives a reference in the song of The Rocky Horror Picture Show’s introductory song — assembled a several prominent cinematic figures before they created their best-known work.

Atwill eventually turned into a recurring actor in the famous Frankenstein movies. Wray appears here a couple of years prior to she turned into the most iconic horror heroines in history in the original King Kong. And they’re helmed by Michael Curtiz, who eventually created The Adventures of Robin Hood, Mildred Pierce, and including Casablanca, along with other films.

Doctor X is far from sophisticated as the director’s canonized classics, but the transgression is remarkable: This movie was made before the MPAA and preceding the content regulations that banned themes like flesh-eating, voyeuristic content, body harvesting, and neurosurgical horror.

Additionally, it was created with the early color process, an initial iteration of filming in color which provides the movie strange oddly tinted tints that imply a universe familiar yet different, but exaggerated and distorted.

And seen today, following years of classic lycanthropes, transparent entities, and etc., Doctor X’s crime investigation storyline comes across as like a ingenious monster-movie deception. A sequence of horrific cannibalistic homicides taking place under a bright night sky seems like the doing of a terrifying monster. But persons of interest spearheaded by Dr. Xavier are nonetheless assembled for an probe, involving macabre reenactments of the crime locations.

Mad Love: The Actor Peter Lorre and Sinister Bizarre Plots

Mad Love is hardly a mystery: Any movie featuring Peter Lorre simplifies it to surmise who the culprit might be. When lead Stephen Orlac suffers hand amputation in an accident, he seeks help from Dr. Gogol, who unfortunately develops a fixation on Stephen’s wife Yvonne.

Gogol performs a hand transplant on unfortunate Stephen, equipping him with the mitts of a dagger-tossing psychopath, in an attempt to stealing Yvonne away.

Mad Love isn’t as frantic as the man-versus-hand humor of Evil Dead 2, but it contains elements of that sinister bizarreness, profiting immensely from the sheer quantity of Peter Lorre moments. Both these movies are stranger and creepier than the majority of Frankenstein continuations, and they are superb at the same area as the finest Universal Monster entries: blurring the line between creature and man, in these examples with a surgical expertise incorporated in the equation.

Availability

These features are accessible for streaming or download through leading streaming retailers. Mad Love is available to stream for complimentary on specific commercial services, though viewers should beware regarding possible aspect ratio issues.