Author Donald Willis continues his insights into horror film history with his new tome on the 1940s. Yes, we had vampires and
the Frankenstein Monster, mummies, a new villain-the Wolf Man, dark moody Val Lewton films and a slew of comic monster rallies.
If the 1930s was Universal and monsters, the 1940s was RKO and mood-states of mind. The Palladists in The Seventh Victim, Kyra (Helene Thimig), in
Isle of the Dead and (outside RKO) Count Fosco (Sydney Greenstreet) in The
Woman in White-all work on their victims psychologically-to the point of death.
They wear down their chosen prey mentally. Meanwhile, Universal in the 1940s could be seen
to have been spinning its wheels for about seven years, until the logical, comic outcome in 1948: Abbott and
Costello Meet Frankenstein.
