If you're out the 1930s, Universal Pictures became the studio known for monster movies.

It's Dracula, Frankenstein, the Mummy, the Wolfman, the Invisible Man, and many other beloved monsters dominated the horror genre throughout the decade.

But among these monster movies, Universal also produced stranger but equally entertaining horror films about human beings doing unspeakable things to each other.

In 1932, James Whale essentially created the Old Dark House sub genre with his hilarious and creepy movie of the same name.

And in 1935, Lou Landers directed a truly unhinged film starring Bella and Boris about a deranged man with an Edgar Allan Poe of Session who had transformed his home into a torture chamber.

Join me as we continue exploring the evolution of home invasion and we discuss Universal's the Old Dark House and the Raven.

Welcome back to the evolution of horror. My name is Mike Munster and as ever, I am your host. In this podcast, we explore and dissect the history and the evolution of the horror genre one sub-jummer at a time.

We are currently in the middle of our ninth series exploring the evolution of home invasion and this is part two.

In this week's episode, as that intro suggested, we are going to be discussing two Universal 30s classics, the Old Dark House from 1932 and the Raven from 1935.

Both of these discussions will be spoilerific so please do give both films a watch before you listen to our discussion.

So joining me to discuss these two vintage classics, here's the expert when it comes to all horror movies made over 80 years ago.

He is a longtime friend of the port. He was last here in our vampire series to discuss Nosferatu and Vampir with me. And it sounds like he's back. Let's get the door.

James Swanton, hello.

Hello Mike, how are you?

Very well, thank you. Lovely to see you. Welcome to my home. Come on in, take your shoes off.

Nice in here. Patreon must be going well, Mike.

It's going well, James. It's going well. I've got free lancers.

No, right. It's so lovely to have you here, James. So tell me, it's been a while since we last chatted, how are you, how have you been?

I'm okay. I had the most manic year of my life last year. Yes.

Full of projects, I'm still not allowed to talk about. So that's incredibly interesting for the purposes of a podcast where information is disseminated for the interest of its listeners.

What have I done that I can talk about?

I know this is the problem because you've done all this exciting stuff, but you're sort of bound and gagged legally, aren't you? This is the problem.

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