Monsters. I love 'em, you love 'em, they're everywhere, especially now that Halloween is upon us. Once objects of fear, now they've become objects of fun, mascots of the season (or at least October). And towering far above your Freddys and Jasons and Jeeperses Creeperses are the Icons, the Pantheon of Fear. The Universal Monsters (or their templates, anyway) are the Kings of Halloween, y'all. Count Dracula. The Non-Specific Werewolf. The Surprisingly Ambulatory Mummy. The Monster Whom We Should Probably Just Call "Frankenstein" Already. The Gill-Man, I Guess.
(Seriously, though, is there a more unwieldy appellation than "The Frankenstein Monster"? Everybody called him "Frankenstein" at one time or another, before their "Um, actually"s set in. Let it be so again!)
These guys are the rock stars, the elder statesmen. The Big Five (or reasonable facsimiles thereof) have been everywhere, from beer commercials to fighting games to (hoo boy) sexy Japanese figurines to terrible '90s action cartoons to... cute high school girls? (By the way, this "Monster High" thing: is it a less sincere attempt to capture the same accidental audience as That Pony Show, or slight misinterpretation of a certain pop star's bizarro term of endearment to her fans? You be the judge!) They're so ingrained in our minds, our pop culture, our very pores. Kids are born with inherent knowledge of Frankenstein! (and also, like, Superman, but that's a different post.)
Well, obviously Dracula and Frankenstein are at the top. Even today, Dracula, as created by Stoker and popularized by Lugosi and Browning, is the yardstick by which other fictional vampires are measured against. Jack Pierce's makeup for the Monster is the first thing anyone thinks of when you say "Frankenstein". Yeah, the werewolf might be up there, slightly below the other two, but less as a character than as an archetype; that's the nature of the beast, as it were. In his nonfiction book Danse Macabre, Steven King lists his "monster Tarot" as the Werewolf, the Vampire, and the Thing With No Name.
Don't talk to me about the Mummy or the Gill-Man, 'cos I don't wanna hear it. They're just not as exciting to me as the others. What's the Mummy's deal, anyway? Sometimes he's a weaker cousin to the Frankenstein Monster in different clothes (Kharis being used as a weapon reminds me of Ygor using the Monster to kill the jurors who elected to hang him), sometimes (Imhotep in the original, and the '90s update) he's an evil wizard. As for the Gill-Man, he's kind of on the edge, the last "classic" horror monster and a harbinger of the "big bug" mutation monster of the '50s. But, hey, they were both in The Monster Squad. That's credentials enough.
Occupying a lower tier is probably the Bride (an iconic look and performance is enough to offset the very little screentime she actually has) and the Phantom of the Opera (the junior Chaney could never match the manic energy of his old man). (And some would argue in favor of the Invisible Man, but I just don't see it.)
Aside from all that, there's something else I'd like to mention. Something slightly older, slightly more... autumnal. These faces entered into our consciousness not necessarily through films, but from older traditions. The Ghost. The Skeleton. The Witch. They're from darker, more primal corners of our minds. Fears of death, of decay, of darkness. The Skeleton and the Witch appear as masks in the woefully underrated Halloween III (with the Ghost swapped out for a more practical Pumpkin, but, you know.) If the Universal Monsters are kings of Halloween, these three are Emperors (and Empress). But maybe bringing them into the present day, making them Halloween characters, using their images for fun, is our way of saying we're not afraid of what they represent.
It all goes back to what many people enjoy about Halloween. Fear can be fun. In the face of autumn (and oncoming winter), it's nice to have a moment of excitement and joy. So have a happy All Hallow's Eve tonight. Just watch out for the monsters.
