Dracula - The Legacy Collection (Dracula / Dracula (1931 Spanish Version) / Dracula's Daughter /...

Dracula - The Legacy Collection (Dracula / Dracula (1931 Spanish Version) / Dracula's Daughter / Son of ... | Bela Lugosi, Sheila Manners | Mixed Bag

DVDs:

Dracula - The Lega...

	Dracula - The Legacy Collection (Dracula / Dracula (1931 Spanish Version) / Dracula's Daughter / Son of ... Bela Lugosi, Sheila Manners Universal Studios, 2004 average customer review:based on 73 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Dracula is not scary anymore...

OK, my kids saw Van Helsing (dumb movie) at a sleepover last weekend and got into the whole Dracula thing so I sat down and did my research. In the last week I watched all the greats again, Murneau's Nosferatu and then Herzog's version. Today I watched Browning's and Coppola's Dracula and I watched Morrisey's last week (yuk!). I must say the German versions are far scarier and more realistic. Max Von Shrek is truly repulsive while Lugosi seems stiff and almost comical at times. Klaus Kinski nails the role while Oldman (maybe it was Coppola's fault) is more like "Count Liberace". As far as supporting roles go, if you look at the actors playing Lucy, Renfield and Harker there is no comparison, Murneau and Herzog have stronger casting. I probably shouldn't have watched the films in this order because I used to love the original Dracula and I dig Tod Browning and "Freaks" and all (check out Herzog's ode to Browning entitled "Even Dwarfs Started Small") but from the script to lighting to props (i.e., the bats in Browning's Dracula suck and Coppola's are overblown), the "Nosferatu's" are superior. I'm gonna have to see every flick about "Drac" ever made in the next few months (can't wait for the 70's trash pics) to give a fair comparison but for now, this is my two cents. As far as this DVD set and the rest of the films it features are concerned, I think the "Monster Collection" sets are still cool and the films may range from sorta scary to downright silly, but they're neat additions to the collection.

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Mixed Bag

Poor Audio (low volume-lots of hiss) and poor image quality doom the original in this boxed set. What is clearly the best of the films was given the bum's rush! Dracula's Daughter was exceptional in both image and audio-a perfect presentation. Much looked the same for Son of Dracula-but alas-the DVD jammed and the entire thing was sent back to Amazon for replacement. I am hoping for better with the next set!

Little more than a curiosity

Note: In this review I will only discuss the original 'Dracula'

Sorry friends, but 'Dracula' is little more than a curiosity nowadays. I watched this for the first time since I was a little kid, and it has not aged well. Course, you can't trust your judgement from when your 5-7. Put just about anything in front of me, and I was hypnotized. Of course, that's largely true today, which is why this manages a full 3 stars.

The technical problems aren't even at the heart of this films flaws. Hell, 'Night of the Living Dead' is the greatest horror movie of all time, but it isn't much more advanced than this from a technical standpoint. And it's not a lack of visceral violence, as I still really enjoy 'Carnival of Souls' and 'Night of the Demon', which are no more graphic than this. The real problem is that they apparently didn't even understand how to tell stories thru sound films yet at this point. Perhaps they supposed that the fact that the film had people actually talking in it would be sufficient enticement and novelty to interest people, and wouldn't doubt that it would've been at the time. Thus, they've cut back on the visual panache of expressionist horror films with out adding in adequate plot so we get the worst of both worlds. (And something noticeably less interesting than say 'The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari', though that film isn't exactly the height of fascination either.)

It's obvious that this is just basically a filming of a play. Much more troubling, it's fairly lousy play, with rather dull, flavorless and perfunctory dialogue. It does have some nice set design and some okay atmosphere at the beginning, but it drags in the second half, a truly disconcerting thing for a film that's not much over an hour long. Still, it is worth something, simply as a curiosity. It's just somewhat interesting to watch such a primitive movie, just to get a sense of history and a taste of something different, but the dated aspects of the film don't have too much novelty. (Unlike, say, 'King Kong', which is threadbare when it comes to plot and dialogue, but has fascinating and intriguing effects.) Really, this is like the cave paintings in Europe when it comes to film. Worth seeing once, but not much worth analyzing. Not much to analyze, as a matter of fact. And yeah, you can barely hear anything on this DVD.

Grade: C-

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