THE UNIVERSAL HORROR CLASSICS #1 Any time of the year, I occasionally take a look at one of my favorite buys: a 4 Disc collection of the 4 (scratch, 5) classics from the early days of Universal Horror films. However, since our own Cinefiles have reviewed these in the past (and the subject matter often comes up with this subject), I’ll talk about my own thoughts over these films. What’s great about these is that, alongside the films themselves, each disc has documentary and great historian commentaries, which give additional fun facts about these movies. DRACULA: Having traveled to Transylvania on professional business, lawyer-accountant-realtor (who knows?) Renfield meets Count Dracula, as he is making the final preparations to relocate to his new home at Carfax Abby in London. However, after strange occurrences happen, Renfield is enslaved by Dracula, a vampire who seeks new victims in a new land, eventually alluring the charms of Lucy and her lovely friend Mina. While Universal had done horror films before, DRACULA represented a new advancement to establish horror films as a product (it was also one of the first horror Blockbusters). The film itself is very loosely based on Bram Stoker’s original novel (more directed from other theater adaptations of the play). It also established a great lead in Bela Lugosi. While he would be forever stereotyped in the horror genre, it’s easy to see Lugosi’s appeal even today. His performance is very stoic, and given this was an early sound film, Lugosi would’ve worked completely either with silence or sound. His voice is one of the most often imitated whenever someone brings up Dracula or even the word “VAMPIRE”. Unfortunately, the only other actors that stand the test of time is Dwight Frye as Renfield (it’s easily the most overacted and maniacally fun performance), although Edward Van Sloane as Van Helsing is trying his best. The other actors and actresses are just sluggish and stilted when put against Lugosi. While DRACULA is definitely the first success for Universal, it’s also the weakest of their horror films to me, largely due to the work of Tod Browning. Browning has proven a decent director (I direct you to the later film FREAKS), but the direction of this film just feels very “point and shoot”, where Browning rarely works with the great sets he has (especially the finale in the catacombs; a lot could’ve been done with that vast crumbling set, but so little action or even camera direction is done). This DVD also has, along with a separate musical score created decades later by Phillip Glass, a complete separate Spanish language film of DRACULA (during its original production, Browning’s film was shot during the day, and in the late night hours, a complete different team shot a Spanish Language version…and it just shows how little Browning did with this movie. While its lead actor just doesn’t have Lugosi’s style, the direction is far more epically driven, and the production and sets are far more expressive). In comparison, I would compare Browning’s direction is simply that he filmed a obvious STAGE PRODUCTION and never really made it THEATRICAL. Even still, largely for Lugosi, DRACULA’s still worth the watch, at least to show how the whole experience began.
Posted on: Sat, 04 Oct 2014 22:26:53 +0000