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While The famed filmmakers’ 1930s-40s scary films brought to prominence a collection of legendary monsters, 1931’s Frankenstein also followed its literary source material in showing that at times, the actual villainy isn't perpetrated by a terrifying entity of the night. Sometimes it’s the creation of a doctor who’s gone mad with dark experimentation drive.

Two independent scary films from this period serve as a notably engaging two-film lineup for enthusiasts of creatures and/or mad science: Doctor X from 1932, and Mad Love from 1935.

Doctor X: Early Era Macabre and Vintage Hues

Doctor X — that receives a reference in the lyrics of The Rocky Horror Picture Show’s introductory song — united a multiple prominent cinematic stars prior to they created their best-known work.

Atwill later became a recurring presence in Universal’s Frankenstein movies. Wray stars in this picture two years before she turned into the screamingest terrified leading ladies in history in the original King Kong. The film is overseen by Michael Curtiz, who later directed The Adventures of Robin Hood, Mildred Pierce, and no less than Casablanca, along with other films.

Doctor X is far from classy as Curtiz’s canonized classics, but the daring is remarkable: This movie was made ahead of censorship and before the filmmaking rules that prohibited themes like flesh-eating, peeping scenes, body harvesting, and mind violence.

Moreover, the film was created with the vintage hue technique, an early form of filming in color which imparts the movie otherworldly oddly tinted colors that imply a universe like ours, but heightened and distorted.

And seen today, post-era of Universal’s lycanthropes, unseen beings, and more, Doctor X’s crime investigation plot feels increasingly like a smart creature-feature deception. A string of gruesome cannibalistic murders taking place under a full moon appears to be the work of a terrifying beast. But persons of interest led by Dr. Xavier are still brought together for an probe, featuring perverse reenactments of the crime locations.

The Mad Love Film: Peter Lorre and Sinister Bizarre Plots

Mad Love is not much of a puzzle: Any film with Peter Lorre makes it easy to surmise who the guilty party might be. When main character Stephen Orlac has his hands severed in an incident, he consults Dr. Gogol, who regrettably develops a fixation on Stephen’s wife Yvonne.

Gogol performs a grafting procedure on poor Stephen, equipping him with the mitts of a blade-hurling psychopath, in an attempt to taking Yvonne away.

Mad Love isn’t as hyper as the man-versus-hand slapstick of Evil Dead 2, but it has some of that devilish bizarreness, profiting immensely from the large number of the actor’s screen time. These two films are weirder and more unsettling than many of the Frankenstein sequels, and they excel in the same area as the top classic creature movies: obscuring the boundary between creature and man, in these examples with a medical degree added to the mix.

Availability

Both movies are offered for purchase or rental through major digital platforms. Mad Love is offered for watching for complimentary on certain ad-based platforms, though fans should exercise care regarding possible image proportion problems.