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Although The classic studio’s 1930s-40s scary films popularized an array of renowned monsters, 1931’s Frankenstein faithfully adapted its dark fiction inspiration in showing that on occasion, the true evil isn’t committed by a horrific creature of the night. Frequently it’s the work of a surgeon who’s become unhinged with dark experimentation drive.

A couple of independent horror movies from this period serve as a notably entertaining twin billing for devotees of fiends and/or deranged research: Doctor X from 1932, and Mad Love from 1935.

Doctor X: Before Censorship Macabre with Vintage Hues

Doctor X — which gets a reference in the lyrics of The Rocky Horror Picture Show’s first musical piece — brought together a number of prominent film industry figures prior to they produced their iconic work.

The actor Lionel Atwill went on to become a recurring actor in Universal’s Frankenstein movies. Fay Wray features in this film a couple of years prior to she earned her place as the most iconic scream queens ever in the original King Kong. And they’re overseen by Curtiz, who eventually created The Adventures of Robin Hood, Mildred Pierce, and including Casablanca, along with other films.

Doctor X is not as classy as the director’s canonized classics, but the transgression is glorious: This movie was made before the MPAA and prior to the filmmaking rules that forbade themes like cannibalism, peeping scenes, body harvesting, and mind violence.

It was also filmed using the vintage hue method, an early form of color film which gives the movie otherworldly green and pink colors that imply a universe familiar yet different, but exaggerated and askew.

Viewed now, after decades of the studio’s lycanthropes, transparent entities, and etc., Doctor X’s whodunit plot feels increasingly like a clever creature-feature deception. A series of grisly cannibalistic murders happening under a full moon sounds like the handiwork of a terrifying beast. But persons of interest spearheaded by Dr. Xavier are still gathered for an probe, involving twisted recreations of the kill sites.

The 1935 Feature: The Actor Peter Lorre and Macabre Bizarre Plots

Mad Love is less of a puzzle: Any feature with Peter Lorre makes it easy to guess who the wrongdoer could be. When protagonist Stephen Orlac has his hands severed in an incident, he seeks help from Dr. Gogol, who sadly becomes obsessed with Stephen’s wife Yvonne.

Gogol performs a surgical hand replacement on hapless Stephen, providing him with the graspers of a knife-throwing maniac, in an attempt to stealing Yvonne away.

Mad Love isn’t as hyper as the person versus limb humor of Evil Dead 2, but it has some of that wicked bizarreness, benefiting mightily from the large number of Peter Lorre moments. Both these movies are stranger and creepier than the majority of Frankenstein follow-ups, and they are superb at the same area as the top iconic fiend movies: obscuring the boundary between fiend and person, in these examples with a medical degree added to the combination.

Where to Watch

The two films are offered for rent or buy through major digital platforms. Mad Love is accessible for viewing for free on select commercial platforms, though viewers should be cautious regarding possible screen format distortions.