John Carradine, House of Frankenstein and House of Dracula
The career of John Carradine spanned six decades across a variety of genres, but horror fans know him best for the enormous array of cult and B-movies that sprinkle his filmography (just a tiny sampling: The Howling, The Sentinel, House of the Long Shadows, The House of Seven Corpses, and Dr. Terror’s Gallery of Horrors). Before he pivoted fully into eccentric character actor mode, however, he played Count Dracula (aka “Baron Latos”) in a pair of Universal’s monster-mash pictures: 1944’s House of Frankenstein and 1945’s House of Dracula. The first film is about a mad scientist (Boris Karloff) who decides to revive not just Dracula, but also Frankenstein’s monster (Glenn Strange) and the Wolf Man (Lon Chaney, Jr.). It doesn’t end well. In the second film, Dracula pulls a Morbius and tries to find a cure for his vampirism, and there are more shenanigans with the Wolf Man and Frankenstein’s monster—but again, it ends badly. Gotta stay out of the sunlight, buddy! Carradine returned to the role a few more times later in his career, including a (sadly forgettable) visit to the Wild West in 1966’s Billy the Kid Versus Dracula.
