Ever wish that the monster in the horror movie would survive? In the classic 1931 film Frankenstein, the monster meets a tragic end when he is burned on a windmill. The Creeper in House of Horrors, a 1946 film, is shot to death. The 1959 iteration of The Mummy has its title creature meet an untimely demise. In all of these movies, the monsters are sympathetic characters who are easy to understand. They commit horrific acts of violence, but when they are compared to other characters in the films, they seem more humane.
Dr. Frankenstein wants to be God. He assembles a man out of the body parts and organs that he scavenged from graves and laboratories and animates him with a special ray. But he didn't just reanimate a corpse, he creates something entirely new by taking all different parts from different places.
When the "monster" is born, he kills the doctor's assistant, another doctor who is trying to dissect him, a little girl, and finally, his creator. All of this violence has its causes. The monster wants peace, beauty, and friendship. He does not want to be teased and threatened with flaming torches. He is afraid of fire. He does not want to be cut open with scalpels. Who would?
He does not want people to scream when they see him like Dr. Frankenstein's fiancee. He is just admiring her beauty. The little girl was playing with daisies. They were throwing the flowers into the lake and the brute decides to throw the cute little girl in the lake, too. When he sees her sinking he tries to pull her out, but he is afraid of the water. The little girl gives him a little wildflower which he takes and admires. Unlike Dr. Frankenstein, the monster does not want to be a powerful God. He is physically powerful but does not take pride in that. He simply wants to be at peace, free from the hostility of others, and near the beauty of a girl holding a flower.
Like the Frankenstein monster, the character known as the Creeper in House of Horrors was easy to understand. He killed women and was about to die floating in a river when an itinerant sculptor Marcel finds and rescues him. Marcel was at a low point in his life, about to kill himself because a mean art critic disparaged his work.
When he finds the Creeper, he is struck immediately by the man's disfigured face and sees an opportunity for gain. Marcel believes that he could make a masterpiece out of the fearsome sight. After taking him home, Marcel feeds the Creeper and tells him his plan to make art from his face. The Creeper humbly agrees as he was simply happy that someone did not run or scream when they saw him.
Marcel is the true monster. He manipulates the Creeper into killing the art critic and then another. His sculptures become horrifying two-headed figures with odd postures and strange appendages. He becomes convinced that he is an artistic genius that no one else understands. Although the Creeper kills women, it is only when they scream at seeing him that he lashes out. He kills because of the awful way those screams make him feel about himself. Marcel tricks The Creeper into thinking he has found a friend, but he really wants to use him to become rich and famous and do his dirty work.
In The Mummy, Kharis was a high priest who makes the mistake of falling in love above his station with Princess Ananka. For his indiscretion, his tongue was cut out and he was cursed to spend eternity an undead guardian of his beloved's tomb. Mehemet did not want the Englishman, John Benning, near the tomb of the Princess because he was a fanatic.
Benning forces the mummy to kill those who enter the tomb; Kharis kills out of duty and love, as a guardian who honorably protects his beloved's tomb and body. Mehemet just wants vengeance for what he sees as a desecration of the tomb. When he tries to kill Isobel who resembled Princess Ananka, Kharis stops him. If he had been just a mindless killing machine, he would have let it happen instead of trying to carry her off.
These three monsters remind audiences not to judge on appearances and to examine the motivations behind their violent actions. This paradox is what makes these movies enduring classics. Frankenstein's Monster, the Creeper, and the Mummy wanted what truly kind people want: acceptance, love, and peace. But they were so scary! The Monster was a reanimated conglomerate of corpses with a maniac's brain. The Creeper had a horrible disfigurement. The Mummy was of the undead. The filmmakers were successful in creating memorable and sympathetic leading figures in these three classic films.