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I've seen a few of the grand old monsters in 35mm at the yearly HorrorThon held at the Lafayette Theatre in Suffern, New York. It's a 1000 seat movie palace built in 1924 and, in my opinion, the only way to really see them the way they were meant to be seen.  ---< ok. end of plug>---

FRANKENSTEIN was well received with no real laughter, except during the monster and Maria by the lake scene. When she gives the monster some flowers and the monster has a dumb stuck look on his face, several people laughed at him. I didn't hear anything negative when the monster growled at Elizabeth.

BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN was also well received and well attended, with about 400 people. The audience was with it all the way. Scared when the monster first appears in the flooded basement, and when he and Dr. Pretorious visit Henry. I could hear genuine sympathy in the audience when the monster tries to make nice with the shepherdess and when the monster stumbles across the blind hermit in the woods. The monster crying, violin's swelling on the soundtrack helped, too. I did hear one woman voice contempt when Carradine and friend break up the party.

The showing of SON OF FRANKENSTEIN was not well attended, so the audience who was there were all monsterkids and not "civilians'. Not a peep at all during the show.

HOUSE OF FRANKENSTEIN was surprisingly well attended with about 350 people coming for a 2:00 Saturday matinee show. Again they were respectful with no chuckles to be heard. I do remember one young boy, about 9 or 10, coming out of the showing and asking his mother quite seriously, "so, Dracula is really dead? He can't come back again, can he?" The kid probably looked under his bed that night.

The HOUSE OF DRACULA showing was also sparse, so the audience was quiet and respectful, except for one yahoo who sat several rows in front of me. He was having a grand old time chuckling at anything that seemed funny to him, which was anytime a monster showed up.

The real kicker was ABBOTT AND COSTELLO MEET FRANKENSTEIN. I went in expecting howls of laughter all through it. I couldn't have been more wrong! The audience of about 500+ just went with it. They laughed at the obvious A&C routines, but became quiet whenever any of the monsters started prowling. The tensest moment was when Wilbur finds himself outside the rotating wall, Dracula and the monster coming toward him. Believe it or not, the moment really worked and the audience was scared! Anytime the Wolfman was around was a cause of concern for several kids 2 rows in back of me! Loved it!

DRACULA was a Saturday night show and about 350 people came to meet the Count. All were respectful and into it. I was expecting some laughter when Renfield started acting crazy, but nobody said anything.

2 other films of note I saw there were CARNIVAL OF SOULS and the original Japanese version of GODZILLA. CARNIVAL prompted some laughs in the wrong places, mostly due to Candice Hilligoss's reactions to white faced Herk Harvey. Otherwise it played like an interesting film but not a particularly scary one.
GODZILLA, on the other hand, had them diving for cover. I remember thinking during the scene where a mother and 2 girls are cowering in the outside corner of a building, she looks up and there is the big G ready to stomp them. If I was 10 years old and saw that in a theatre, on that big screen, I would have had nightmares for weeks. Good stuff!

The only real negative experience I had was in the mid 80's when I saw THE MUMMY in 16mm at a very small revival theatre with a bunch of too-cool-for-school hipsters in their early 20's. They laughed all the way through it like it was a comedy. Punks!