With Halloween rapidly approaching, it won’t be long until we’re able to indulge in some of the best horror films of all time. The Universal Monsters have been a mainstay of the Halloween season for over a century, even if some fans think of films like Halloween and A Nightmare on Elm Street when the genre is brought up. For this year’s Halloween, the renowned company is releasing Universal Classic Monsters: Icons of Horror Collection Volume 2 on October 11. The Physical Media Connoisseur on Twitter claims that four great movies will be included in the collection. These include such classics as The Mummy (1932), The Bride of Frankenstein (1935), The Phantom of the Opera (1925), and The Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954).
The lineup in Vol. 2 isn’t as impressive as it was in the first collection (which included Dracula, Frankenstein, The Wolf Man, and The Invisible Man), but it’s still guaranteed to please many die-hard horror aficionados. One reason is that The Bride of Frankenstein remains one of the finest horror sequels of all time. James Whale, the film’s director, built on the gothic original’s solid foundations and improved upon everything from the film’s eerie atmosphere to the great performances.
Although Frankenstein is a more well-known film and features more memorable quotes, Bride is superior in every aspect. Then there’s The Mummy, a film that diverges wildly from the standard image of the legendary monster. In this 1932 classic, Boris Karloff, best renowned for playing Frankenstein, plays a Mummy who is not wrapped in toilet paper. He is more like Michael Myers, and Karloff skillfully portrays the part of a slasher villain.
The Mummy was an innovative horror thriller/pseudo-slasher before its time, much before Black Christmas, Psycho, and Halloween. In this future batch, The Phantom of the Opera and The Creature from the Black Lagoon are likely to have the lowest levels of public consumption. While the 1925 silent cinema adaptation of Phantom is perhaps the most well-known, Universal’s 1943 Technicolor rendition has enough of its own merits.
As a result, the dread was amplified. Creature From the Black Lagoon, to wrap things up, is a typical B-movie creature feature that has influenced subsequent films in the genre. The movie’s underwater scenes, in particular, were groundbreaking for their day and stand up quite well now. For this reason, it’s fantastic that these movies will now be available in 4K. Though these four films may not be as well-known as the classics featured in Universal’s Vol. 1 collection, they are nonetheless essential to the annals of horror cinema. The set’s pricing hasn’t been disclosed just yet, but given that Vol. 1 retailed for approximately $80, it’s a reasonable assumption that Vol. 2 will be priced similarly.
It’s fantastic that Universal is investing in the restoration of its iconic monster pictures, and these collections should become annual Halloween traditions for many. Other masterpieces like “Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man” and “Son of Frankenstein” should be given the same treatment. The legendary Universal Monster flicks are now available in its full-on Peacock to tide you over till the monster mash on October 11. Amazon also currently sells Volume 1 of Universal Classic Monsters: Icons of Horror Collection 4K.