Universal Horror

A pretty good documentary on Universal's first wave of horror films from 1931 to 1939. It starts off with silent horror films which inspired the studio and filmmakers and gets into detail about Universal films like "Dracula" (the English AND Spanish versions), "Frankenstein", "The Mummy", "The Invisible Man", etc. etc. They have some great interviews with people who saw the movies in their original runs (the best are from Ray Bradbury and James Karen), clips from the films themselves, a VERY cool color home movie showing Karloff in his green makeup as Frankenstein and some non-Universal horror like "King Kong" and "Mystery of the Wax Museum". As a fan of old Universal films there was nothing new here but I was entertained. If you're a newcomer to those old films this is a good place to start.

Universal Horror (1998) *** 1/2 (out of 4)

This Kevin Brownlow documentary has Kenneth Branagh doing the narration as we're told the history of the Universal Studios monsters. The documentary clocks in at just over ninety-minutes and if you're unfamiliar with the studio and their monsters then it's certainly a must see.

We get interviews with historians as well as people who actually worked at the studio and in some cases in the monster movies themselves. The likes of Ray Bradbury, Nina Foch, James Karen, Carla Laemmle, Sara Karloff, Gloria Stuart, David J. Skal, Fay Wray and Lupita Tovar among others are interviewed for the documentary.

Again, I think the people unfamiliar with the studio are going to be the ones who enjoy this the most since the story is aimed more at people who might not be experts on the studio and the films. I say this because the documentary mainly looks at the higher known pictures like Dracula, FRANKENSTEIN, THE MUMMY, BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN and THE WOLF MAN. Yes, the sequels as well as some of the other films are discussed but the documentary doesn't go into great detail about some of the smaller or lesser known pictures.

Still, the interviews are certainly priceless today as many of the people here are now deceased so getting to hear their thoughts on the studio will be great for history. I did have a few issues with the film including the fact that a good portion of the start takes a look at Lon Chaney who wasn't a Universal star. There's no doubt he was important to the genre but I would have preferred hearing more about the lesser known Universal horror films over Chaney and his work at MGM.

this is an extremely interesting documentary detailing the early years of the Universal horror films. as well as featuring the most well-known films (dracula, frankenstein, wolf man &tc), it also details a plethora of other, less known films.

it would be great if this were the 1st part of a series documenting the horror film, continuing on until the present day. especially if the other films were both as entertaining and intelligent as this.

This documentary on classic horror is found on the DVD of the 1932 version of The Mummy. It consists of interviews with actors, crew, experts and those who have been inspired in various ways by the movies, clips of them(from different decades, silent and spoken alike, and you can see the evolution of film-making), behind-the-scenes footage and stills as well as narration(Branagh seldom lets us down, and this is no exception). The amount of journalism alone is impressive here, and the presentation is so smooth and compelling that you end up not able to take your eyes off it. I'm not used to being this captivated by something presented in this medium which is not fiction. They cover a massive amount in the well-paced 95 minutes that fly right by. The technical aspects, different language versions(some of them superior to the American originals!), Boris Karloff, Lon Chaney, make-up, the connection to WWI(the popularity of the thrilling flicks was partially on account of grotesquely hurt and disfigured people(victims of the war) living on, because of medical advances), the accusation of these pictures causing real life crimes, European styles and look, Gothic, Bauhaus, expressionism, art, etc. They even give away how some of the FX were done(including an early version of blue-screen!), and you really understand why these were beloved. Editing is crisp, and this never dwells excessively on anything. There is a lot of disturbing content, gory and violence in this. I warmly recommend this to every single fan of the medium, not just of the period or the specific genre. 8/10

I acquired this via an imperfect VHS copy culled from a U.K. TV screening (which was followed, as per the closing announcement, by one of the very films it dealt with i.e. James Whale's sublime THE OLD DARK HOUSE {1932}), rather than any of the "Anniversary Edition" DVDs on which it has been featured (since I never got around to upgrading them)! Given his reputation as a film restorer, Brownlow is well-known for his love of Silent cinema, so it is somewhat surprising to find him involved in this valediction to the Golden Age of Horror (which it is, since he does not exclusively treat the Universal Studios product) though, not that a considerable amount of time is devoted to the genre efforts which emanated from that pre-Talkie era.

Therein, however, lies the documentary's chief problem: while I loved the fact that such masterpieces as Paul Leni's Silent THE MAN WHO LAUGHS (1928) and Michael Curtiz's Warners-produced MYSTERY OF THE WAX MUSEUM (1933) were discussed in some detail (more predictably, we also get Paramount's magnificent 1931 version of DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE and RKO's no-less-startling KING KONG {1933}), this resulted in a number of Universal films being either not given their due or omitted entirely! The appraisal of the second phase of their heyday proves especially skimpy: considering that we would get various SE DVDs over the next few years of Dracula, FRANKENSTEIN (both 1931), THE MUMMY (1932), et al, where their histories are exhaustively illustrated, one would have liked this to delve deeper behind the scenes of some lesser but still classic stuff such as the atypical 'prestige' production TOWER OF London (1939), seen briefly in the opening credits and then never again, THE MUMMY'S HAND (1940), which is completely neglected, and the troubled FRANKENSTEIN MEETS THE WOLF MAN (1943), again, mentioned only in passing!

Indeed, of the myriad sequels to the original Universal monster movies, unsurprisingly, the only two to receive the requisite attention (since they are among the very best the studio turned out) are the second and third Frankenstein outings (with some on-set clowning relating to the latter being intriguingly shown in color!), with the maligned-but-irresistible 'monster mashes' or their subsequent spoofing at the hands of comic duo Abbott & Costello hardly being addressed at all! That said, we do get to learn some new anecdotes (at least, speaking for myself) including the now-lost MGM effort London AFTER MIDNIGHT (1927), directed by Tod Browning and starring Lon Chaney, having apparently inspired a vicious murder and that, similarly, the Bela Lugosi/Boris Karloff vehicle THE RAVEN (1935) was singled out as being representative of the "degenerate" level to which Horror had sunk. Also, I had always wondered why Edgar G. Ulmer never worked again for the studio during this time after the first Karloff/Lugosi teaming in THE BLACK CAT (1934), which we are also told was among their most commercially successful ventures, and this was because the director fell in love with a woman who was married to the Laemmles, the family that ran Universal!

Needless to say, the documentary is fascinating and makes for a thrilling catalog of some of the most memorable moments not only in horror but movie history, with interjections from several historians, buffs (who watched these pictures in their childhood when they first emerged), relatives of the people who made them and, in a handful of cases, among the very few remaining survivors from that era – actresses Lupita Tovar (Mina in the renowned alternate Spanish-language version of Dracula), Fay Wray, Gloria Stuart and screenwriter Curt Siodmak. However, as I said, I missed hearing about a good many titles (like, say, Universal's first stab at the "Wolf Man" myth in WEREWOLF OF London {1935}, the just-as-seminal 'mad doctor' flick THE INVISIBLE RAY {1936} – once more starring Karloff and Lugosi – but also strictly 'B' stuff such as the "Inner Sanctum" series or the unlikely "Jungle Woman" and "Creeper" franchises) that, in the long run, I feel one is better off reading a book on the subject if he is to get 'the full story'!