There are 30s horror films with genuine chills to be had. Vampyr is one of those, The Black Cat, Island of Lost Souls and White Zombie all bring about a sense of profound disquiet at times and the psychosexual content of The Raven is really intense. Freaks is also a good example of legitimately scary 30s horror as well.

Don't forget the original"Nosferatu"(1922)and "Phantom Of The Opera". True classics.

Max Schrek as Count Orlok from Nosferatu looks creepy, even by today's standards. As for Dracula (1931), it is an all-around great film. A brilliant classic. Definitely one of my favorite films from the 1930s.

I find Nosferatu to be the scariest looking Dracula of all.

I found it to be the creepiest thing in film history. IMO

So....I take it that you were less than impressed with DRACULA?
Love Bela Lugosi and his scenes in Transylvania with Dwight Frye are great, but it goes down quick after that...SO MANY missed opportunities. Check out the spanish version for a more complete story.

Yes, there was something about the early 30s specifically that spawned some of the most haunting and memorable horror films.

1931 alone had Vampyr, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde with Frederic March, and of course, both Frankenstein and Dracula.

There's something particularly disturbing about Island of Lost Souls, which hot of the heels of Freaks, also uses people with real physical deformities. I believe that many of the animal men in the film were microcephalic or 'pinheads'.

These films were some of the last before the censorship code in Hollywood was strictly enforced, which might explain the particular perversity and fearlessness that seemed to permeate around that time.

There's a 30's horror film that I liked that had something about cats in the title? I can't remember it, but I'm pretty sure the word "Cat" was in the title. It wasn't The Black Cat.

The Cat and the Canary?

Oh, I forgot about The Old Dark House (1932) !

That is a very strange, underrated film by James Whale right after Frankenstein.