9. Literary sources added to the horror movies genre by having their titles usurped but their stories rewritten
In the 1930s, Universal tapped the literary and poetic works of Edgar Allen Poe, producing Murders in the Rue Morgue (1932), The Black Cat (1934) and The Raven (1935). All three were marketed using Edgar Allen Poe as the creator, all three were Poe titles, but none of the three bore a resemblance to the original story. The Black Cat starred both Lugosi and Karloff and became the biggest moneymaker of the year for Universal. It was widely credited with introducing the psychological horror genre, relying on human emotions to create fear in its audience.
Murders in the Rue Morgue likewise had little to do with Poe’s story, other than naming a detective character Dupin. The film was marketed by identifying its star – Bela Lugosi – as “Dracula himself” though the vampire character did not appear. Instead, Lugosi played a mad doctor – named Dr. Mirakle – who kidnaps young women and injects them with the blood of apes, in an attempt to create a mate for sideshow ape he exhibited in Paris. Lugosi and Karloff also appeared together in The Raven, which was determined to be too violent by critics, and led to a slowdown in the horror movie genre by Universal and other studios.