“He Did The Monster Mash!”: The Universal Monsters And The Rise of The Modern Halloween
One really can’t go a minute without seeing the Universal Monsters in Halloween decorations and as costumes. The Universal Monsters are a group of characters from old Universal Pictures horror films including Frankenstein, Dracula and The Wolf Man.
I’m always fascinated by the evolution of iconic properties and characters evolve over time and how they become ingrained in pop culture. The pop culture evolution of icons like the Universal Monsters says a lot about societal changes and in a holiday’s case, how we perceive the holiday. By the present day, the Universal Monsters and Halloween have become intrinsically linked. The propagation of the Universal Monsters across Halloween festivities originates from a primary source: movies.
The Original Halloween Aesthetic
Halloween has also always been associated with witches, ghosts, and pumpkins. These three images are based more in Halloween’s Pagan origins when it was known in Gaelic territories as Samhain (pronounced as sow-wen). Samhain’s emphasis on witchcraft and methods to avoid evil evolved into what we are…
