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Universal Horror: Classic Movie Archive [2 Discs] - DVD

SKU: 8447371 | Release Date: 10/2/2007

Rating: NR

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Rating: NR
Format: DVD
Length: 326 minutes
Genre: General Horror
Studio: Universal
Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1

Synopsis

Includes:

The Black Cat (1934)

Horror Island (1941)

Man Made Monster (1941)

Night Monster (1942)

Captive Wild Woman (1943)

The Black Cat
The first cinematic teaming of horror greats Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi is a bizarre, haunting, and relentlessly eerie film that was surprisingly morbid and perverse for its time. Peter (David Manners) and Joan Allison (Julie Bishop) are honeymooning in Budapest when they meet mysterious scientist Dr. Vitus Verdegast (Lugosi) aboard a train. When the trio's bus from the train station gets into an accident, the young couple accompanies Verdegast to the castle of the spectral Hjalmar Poelzig (Karloff), an architect and the leader of a Satanic cult. Poelzig's treachery in World War I caused the deaths of thousands of his and Verdegast's countrymen, as well as Verdegast's own internment as a prisoner of war. While Verdegast was detained, Poelzig married first his wife, who later died, then his daughter. Now Verdegast has come back for retribution, and the honeymooners are trapped in the two men's horrifying battle of wits. Corpses preserved in glass cases, frightening Satanic rituals, and a climactic confrontation in which one of the characters is skinned alive add to the film's pervasive sense of evil and doom, along with the stark black-and-white photography by John Mescall that makes Poelzig's futuristic mountaintop mansion even more disturbing. Karloff and Lugosi are both excellent, with Lugosi doing a rare turn as a good guy, albeit one who has gone off the rails. Having little to do with the Edgar Allan Poe story of the same name, The Black Cat has grown in stature over the years and is now widely regarded as the masterpiece of director Edgar G. Ulmer and one of the finest horror films ever made. ~ Don Kaye, All Movie Guide

Horror Island
It has been alleged that Horror Island was the least expensive of Universal's 1940s horror films. While it certainly looks that way, it remains an enjoyable outing from fade-in to fade-out. In the tradition of "Ten Little Indians", a group of disparate types are lured to a supposedly haunted mansion on a remote island. Their "host" is peg-legged privateer Tobias (Leo Carrillo), who possesses half of a valuable treasure map. One by one, the treasure-hunters are killed off by a mysterious assailant, with Tobias the first victim. The identity of the "mystery" killer is fairly obvious from the outset, though the screenplay cheats a bit by rendering the villain helpless during one of the murders. Of the stellar all-character-actor cast, Iris Adrian shines as a leather-lunged blonde, alternating between wisecracks and shivers throughout the film's brisk 61 minutes. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Man Made Monster
Originally slated as a Boris Karloff-Bela Lugosi vehicle, Man Made Monster emerged on screen as a tour de force for Lon Chaney Jr. (in his first horror-film starring role) and Lionel Atwill. Chaney plays Dynamo Dan the Electric Man, a sideshow performer whose talent for absorbing mass quantities of electricity enables him to emerge virtually unscathed when a bus crashes into a pylon. Dan recuperates in the home of Dr. Rigas (Lionel Atwill), a demented scientist ("Mad? Of course I'm mad!") who hopes to create a race of electric-powered supermen. Using Dan as his unwitting guinea pig, Rigas zaps the poor man's energy even as he injects more and more electricity into his system. Suspecting something is amiss when rabbits and goldfish die suddenly at his touch, Dan nonetheless continues to submit to Rigas' treatment. When the doctor's colleague Lawrence (Samuel S. Hinds) figures out what's going on, he confronts Rigas with a "You're mad! I'm going to notify the police!"-whereupon Rigas picks up his cue by ordering the now-zombiefied Dan to kill Lawrence and confess to the murder. The unfortunate fellow is convicted and sentenced to the electric chair, much to the delight of Rigas, who can now put his theories to the ultimate test. Surviving the death-house jolt, Dan absorbs the entire electrical current and becomes a walking, glowing human power plant, killing the warden and the guards and escaping into the countryside. Slowly dying, Dan finally regains a shred of his humanity by rescuing heroine June Lawrence (Anne Nagel) from the clutches of Regas, then puts a permanent end to the mad doctor's evil designs before spectacularly expiring himself. A prime example of Universal's B-picture unit at its peak, Man Made Monster is among the finest of the studio's second-echelon horror product. The film was re-released in the late 1940s under the timely cognomen The Atomic Monster. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Night Monster
More than one aficionado of Universal's horror films has cited Night Monster as the weakest of the batch. Part of the complaint lies in the fact that, despite their first and second billing, Bela Lugosi and Lionel Atwill are utterly wasted, with Atwill getting bumped off in the first reel! The nonsensical farrago of a plotline concerns a mysterious night stalker who has been killing off the doctors attending wealthy, crippled Kurt Ingstom (Ralph Morgan). With both of his legs amputated, Ingstom couldn't possibly be the murderer himself-or could he? The explanation to the mystery is as silly as the rest of the picture, but at least Night Monster boasts a rousing climax, one which suggests that no one lives happily ever after. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Captive Wild Woman
A mad scientist turns a gorilla into a beautiful young woman in this well-made Universal potboiler, the first of three films featuring Paula Dupree, the Ape Woman. John Carradine stars as Dr. Sigmund Walters, whose Crestview Sanitarium witnesses strange and unsettling experiments. The doctor's newest scheme concerns Cheena (Ray "Crash" Corrigan), a female gorilla that he has stolen from the Whipple Circus. Injecting the ape with sex hormones obtained from Dorothy Colman (Martha Vickers), the evil medico attempts to turn the animal into a semi-human creature. When Dr. Walter's longtime nurse, Miss Strand (Fay Helm), objects to this blasphemy, she is summarily murdered and her brain transplanted into the ape woman's skull. The result is named Paula Dupree (Acquanetta), a beautiful but mute creature. At the circus, Paula rescues lion tamer Fred Mason (Milburn Stone) from an attacking animal and a grateful Fred makes her his assistant. The team is highly successful but a lovesick Paula becomes jealous of Fred's girlfriend, Beth Colman (Evelyn Ankers), a condition that turns her into a half-ape, half-woman. Failing to kill Beth, Paula returns to the sanitarium, where Dorothy is being prepared for more experiments. The girl is rescued in the nick of time and an enraged Paula, now completely returned to simian form, kills Walters. Escaping, the ape once again saves Fred's life before being put down by an arriving police officer. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

Version Details

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Universal Horror: Classic Movie Archive [2 Discs]: AMG Review
AMG

Includes:

The Black Cat (1934)

Horror Island (1941)

Man Made Monster (1941)

Night Monster (1942)

Captive Wild Woman (1943)

The Black Cat
The Black Cat is director Edgar G. Ulmer's masterpiece, and only the commercial considerations of its day prevent it from ranking higher on lists of the greatest films of the 20th century. The story operates on multiple levels, most deeply as a parable for post-WWI Europe. Unlike such anti-war films as All Quiet on the Western Front, which seem to have all the answers worked out before the first scene, The Black Cat presents a series of morally ambiguous metaphors that undermine the story's conventional ending. At its most basic level, The Black Cat works as a great horror film. The Bauhaus-inspired set design is uncomfortably disquieting, and Boris Karloff's performance creates one of the screen's most distinct and credible villains. The monsters in The Black Cat are human, unlike in other horror films of the era, where viewers could leave the theater and be quite sure that they would never be terrorized by a mummy or a werewolf. And while the audience understands that Bela Lugosi is the de facto representation of good, there are uncomfortable shortcomings in his character that hinder the audience's comfort. Regrettably, Ulmer felt the commercial need to include various elements of comic relief, and the stiff, uninteresting performance of David Manners as Peter Allison is a major liability. Nonetheless, in its best moments, The Black Cat is as powerful as any film of its era, and it represents the creative direction in which horror films of the 1930s were headed until censorship and other pressures forced them back into the mainstream. ~ Richard Gilliam, All Movie Guide

Horror Island
No reviews available.

Man Made Monster
No reviews available.

Night Monster
Yes, there's a lot that's wrong with Night Monster -- but there's also a fair amount of pleasure to be had from this admittedly-second tier Universal horror flick, especially for those who can't get enough of this kind of picture. As with so many others in this genre, credibility is a big problem -- not about the premise, because one assumes that a movie about "fantastic" doings will by its nature include plot elements that are not really to be found in the real world. The problem is that so many characters act in the most obvious and idiotic way; the film needs victims, so intelligence and common sense fall by the wayside, as so often happens in the celluloid world of mystery and suspense. The plot also gets a bit convoluted, and the dialogue is decidedly overripe (which may be a plus or a minus, depending upon one's enjoyment of such dialogue). More problematic is that top-billed Bela Lugosi and Lionel Atwill are wasted in roles that are far too small -- Atwill disappears after the first half hour or so, and though Lugosi stays for the whole film, his role is of too little importance. (Both actors, by the way, give dependable performances that will not disappoint their fans). Ralph Morgan is a bit much, but Irene Hervey and Fay Helm do quite well (and look quite attractive into the bargain). Director Ford I. Beebe creates solid atmosphere on what was a very quick and economical shoot (and which forced him to utilize some stock footage in several instances), and Charles Van Enger is invaluable for his creepy cinematography. Special appreciation is also due Beebe for his astute use of sound (or lack thereof) to heighten tension. ~ Craig Butler, All Movie Guide

Captive Wild Woman
If Captive Wild Woman is much better than its hoary synopsis would suggest, and it actually is, much of the credit must go to a game cast and the usual good work by ace makeup artist Jack P. Pierce -- even if the makeup could suggest a nefarious (and ludicrous) link between Negroes and simians, an interpretation much discussed when the film premiered but obviously was never intended by its creators. Acquanetta, who earns introductory billing despite having appeared in several bit roles, is both beautiful and eerie and Milburn Stone makes a surprisingly fine hero, his diminutive stature notwithstanding. Stone was reportedly cast because of his physical similarity to famed animal trainer Clyde Beatty, who appears in stock footage from Universal's The Big Cage (1933). John Carradine, as he was wont to do, mugs entertainingly; Evelyn Ankers screams prettily; Paul Fix, as the doctor's ill fated assistant, dies horribly; and sundry veteran Universal players act as you would expect. Credit for the film's success should of course also go to tyro director Edward Dmytryk, an obvious talent whom Universal had borrowed from RKO. If only the studio had stopped here; but, unhappily, two dreadful sequels, Jungle Woman (1944) and Jungle Captive (1945), would forever mar the reputation of Paula Dupree, Universal's sole female monster franchise. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

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Universal Horror: Classic Movie Archive [2 Discs] - DVD

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