The Mummy
Love—or what we call love—produces a lot of lip service, which isn’t a reference to kissing. We proclaim our dedication to another, though in reality—if our typical future behavior is any indication—we might as well be saying, “Fat chance.” Horror films often feature obsession that is billed by the obsessing individual as love in its purest form. This would-be brand of love resembles hate and is in reality about control and ego.
Murders in the Rue Morgue
One of the most unheralded of Universal’s 1930s horror films, though perhaps the purest example of the form during that era, Murders in the Rue Morgue (1932) comes off as early-Hollywood torture porn by way of German Expressionism.