Frankenstein (1931 film) in "The Ghost of Frankenstein" (1942) after his apparent murder in the earlier film). This character — a deranged blacksmith whose neck was broken and twisted due to a botched hanging — befriends the monster and later helps Dr. Wolf Frankenstein, leading to the "hunchbacked assistant" called "Igor" commonly associated with "Frankenstein" in popular culture. Frye also appears in later films in the series, such as in "Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man" (1943). Guillermo del Toro had expressed interest in directing the reboot film for Universal. Del Toro said his "Frankenstein" would be a faithful "Miltonian tragedy", citing Frank Darabont's
Castle Films science-fiction and horror films, many featuring the Universal Classic Monsters "Dracula", "Frankenstein", "The Wolf Man", "The Mummy", "The Creature from the Black Lagoon", and "The Invisible Man". The series launched in 1957 and grew to 30 titles. Castle Films changed its name to Universal 8 in 1977 and experimented with longer-length films, but the era of home video brought an end to Universal's home-movie enterprise in 1984. Universal 8 dealt mostly in excerpts, but Universal Pictures Home Entertainment (founded in 1980) offered feature films in their entirety on videotape. Collectors abandoned the excerpts in favor of the complete movies. The