Movie Review: House of Frankenstein (1944)

Boris Karloff makes his triumphant return to the Frankenstein series not as the Monster, but this time as a mad doctor, Gustav Niemann.

As the monster crossover movie you’d expect this to be, this movie is a bit of a disappointment. Dracula (John Carradine, The Grapes of Wrath) has a small role and he’s disposed of early. Because of that, this movie is more of a Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man again, with those two characters (Glenn Strange and Lon Chaney, Jr., respectively) taking up the bulk of the monster stuff. Chaney is once again great; he’s always so compelling and tragic as Talbot.

The actual highlight of the movie, though, is J. Carrol Naish as the hunchback assistant, Daniel.

He sort of becomes the heart of the movie, and a very tragic character in his own right.

This movie is nowhere near as good as the original Karloff trilogy, but it’s nearly on par with Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man. If you’re a fan of the Universal Monsters, you’ll probably like this one. It’s not the best, but it’s better than a lot of them.

Rating: 6/10