1921. There is evidence that the film was distributed both domestically and internationally, but the full context of this is unclear. Variations of the film's title appear in different publicity materials. The 1922 Cinema Vittoria, Cinema Pace and Cinema Auorora posters from Milan titled the film Il mostro di Frankenstein while later 1926 provincial releases of the film title it Il mostro di Frankestein. New negatives, promotional materials and title cards for the film were being ordered as late as December 1924 in Italian, French, English and Spanish. One surviving posters shows that at least one Italian cinema had planned on exhibiting the film as late as 1926. Critic Guglielmo Giannini stated that "the authors have missed a great opportunity for making an excellent film [...] because they haven't taken into account the formidable material they had at their disposal or they only used it sporadically." The only praise Giannini gave was towards Umbero Guarracino's "scary" performance as The Monster. Legacy The film was the last film Eugenio Testa directed and he never acted in Italy again after. It was also Luciano Albertini and Albertini Films last Italian production as the company would seemingly relocate to Germany afterwards. Scholars of Italian cinema generally identify I Vampiri (1957) as the "first" significant example of an Italian horror film. In 2017, Russ Hunter wrote in the Journal of Italian Cinema & Media Studies that Il mostro di Frankenstein was increasingly identified as Italy's first horror film. This includes Louis Paul in 2005 citing it as the earliest example of an Italian horror film, while Gino Moliterno in Historical Dictionary of Italian Cinema included along with Malombra (1917) as sole entries in the genre as "Italian silent cinema appears to have little interest in the horror genre." Hunter noted that many of the silent era films that might now be coined as horror were referred to simply as cinéma fantastique, a broad term that has tended to encompass horror, science fiction and fantasy films. Hunter argued that the supposed nature of the subject mater, based largely on the title is seen to automatically qualify it as a horror film. Hunter concluded that prior to I Vampiri there was no horror film cycles in Italy prior to that film's release. See also Frankenstein in popular culture List of lost films List of films featuring Frankenstein's monster References Sources External links Progressive Silent Film List: