Scientific research might tell us there's nothing to worry about, but sometimes even the best news can lead our imaginations to terrifying places. Oh, Egyptian mummies were buried in tombs meant to stay sealed for eternity? Nuclear fallout can cause DNA mutations? What could possibly go wrong? It's a small leap from science to horror stories. Almost all our classic movie monsters sprang from real, if misunderstood, science.
Whether these classic monsters sprung from a swamp, Egyptian sarcophagus or, like Frankenstein, a bag of body parts cobbled together for an experiment gone awry, they were all rooted in the public’s fascination with (and sometimes fear of) science. Though the monsters’ look was the creative handiwork of Universal’s team of costume designers, makeup artists and set designers, the public’s scientific understanding (however limited it may have been) of amphibians, mummies, and anatomy fed into the horror.
“Without real science, these monsters would not have been as terrifying as they were,” says Beth Werling, collections manager, history, for the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, where a new exhibition “Natural History of Horror” explores the scientific inspiration behind cinema’s most popular movie monsters. “To one degree or another, all of these monsters had scientific origins.” While Werling cautions that it’s unlikely Universal undertook a concerted effort to bring actual science into the movies, “it is clear that they were certainly looking at images of King Tut's tomb for copying props and set design as well as some real scientific instruments for Frankenstein's lab.”
Read about the science that inspired our favorite movie monsters at Smithsonian.