So, inspired by seeing them all lined up in a multimedia store, I went and saw all the Universal classic horror movies, the ones of the 30s / 40s. Some brief comments about them, not speaking of course about the technical aspects because it would be more than unfair to judge old films by today's visual standards...
DRACULA - I think this movie was carried by Bela Lugosi. They got the perfect look (and proposed over and over the same shot of his menacing eyes) and that was enough to sustain the movie, the initial part in Transylvania was fantastic but the London part was fairly standard. They never show Dracula biting anyone, the scene always fades out when he's about to do it, all the gory vampire activity is just implied. The ending is kinda underwhelming, Dracula just goes to sleep in the morning where he can be stabbed without worries by Van Helsing. Uh well. Still as said Bela Lugosi defined the Dracula look for ages to come, only Gary Holmes is a worthy alternative.
FRANKENSTEIN - Also this movie is carried by the exceptional design of the creature. We all know Boris Karloff's look of Frankenstein's monster and seeing the movie it's easy to see how it became so iconic. Story's kinda classic, some minor logical leaps here and there but all in all a movie well worth its fame.
THE WOLFMAN - Probably the most well rounded of them all, telling a nice and cohesive story. Even back in the day the gimmick of giving a minor role to a big name was already in practice, since Bela Lugosi plays a short lived gypsy. As with the other movies there's not really a prolonged ending, when the action ends, in this case with bad things for the wolfman, the movie just finishes. But it was quite entertaining to watch.
THE MUMMY - This one I didn't like very much. The story was fine and the flashbacks to Egypt were interesting, but all in all it didn't really interest me that much. Also the ending is a bit too easy.
THE INVISIBLE MAN - Another treat! maybe the protagonist is not as iconic as the other monsters, and he wasn't a monster anyway but a mad scientists, but it was captivating to see the bad guy outsmarting the good guys and even one of the protagonists.
THE CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON - The most different of them all I guess, it's also more recent so it's a bit more advanced in style and technology, and while I'm not crazy about the idea of an amphibian man as the antagonist, it was interesting enough to watch it all.
THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA - I went for the "hardcore" edition, the silent 1925 movie. I thought it would have been the most difficult to watch, just not being used to silent movies with title cards to speak the dialogue, but especially towards the end I was anyway immersed in the story. Very faithful to the book, it made me remember many detals now lost in the general perception of the character, thanks to the -anyway masterful- musical of Andrew Lloyd Webber. The look of the Phantom was absolutely great, I can imagine people being horrified by it back in the day. I hope for some other book-to-screen adaptation one day, to get back to the root of the story, since everyone nowadays associate the Phantom with the musical.
Topic: Last movie you saw? (Read 557973 times)
