The Boris Karloff/Bela Lugosi Collections

There really is no two names that inspire instant recognition than Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi.
They made Universal a vast fortune with their movies and characters.

Practically everone knows the story about how Lugosi turned down Frankenstein and at the same time catapulted Karloff into the stratosphere of Hollywood. His career never flagged as Lugosi's did.

They paired up in eight films during their careers. Boris Karloff's career was for more prolific and some would argue that he was the better actor. I couldn't even begin to compare them as actors. They are both legends in every sense of the word.

Where they separated in their careers is the pivotal movie of Frankenstein. The monster connected with audiences. Even though he was "the bad guy" he was still a very sympathetic character. Someone you rooted for despite the villagers and their pesky torches.

Dracula on the other hand was not sympathetic. He was a vile character and you wanted to see him get staked in the end. These ARE the defining roles of their careers. Their bread and butter. While Lugosi wanted to expand his acting career into many different roles he was destined to do horror. He felt stifled by this and frustrated as work slowly went away.

Meanwhile Karloff never really was out of work. He dominated the horror genre for years afterwards and only started to give way to the Roger Corman/Vincent Price movies of the 60's.

So what do you do if you are craving a horror movie and you own a DVD player? You get The Boris Karloff Collection of course!!!! You get five movies that aren't Frankenstein or The Mummy.

You get movies that have been long lost from the memory of cinema. These are very enjoyable movies my friends. They not only star Boris Karloff but Charles Laughton in his psychotic, evil best, Vincent Price, Lon Chaney Jr. and Basil Rathbone to name a few.

For value you can't beat them but I can tell you that by today's standards you might find them dry. There are no explosions. No rubber monsters. No car chases. No gore. No big budgets even. These were set pieces that were probably recycled for several movies. These were shot in simpler times and actually had involving plots. The dialogue isn't on par with today's standards but you will have no problems following along....trust me. You don't have to be spoon fed a plot.

It is probably a stretch to even call them horror. It simply isn't. You get The Tower of London, The Climax, The Black Castle, The Strange Door, and Night Key. All of this for about twenty bucks.

If you can still find it you should also get The Bela Lugosi Collection. It is also a marvelous collection of five movies and they are decidedly darker and four of the five also feature Boris Karloff. You get The Invisible Ray, Black Friday, The Raven, The Black Cat (The first pairing the two legends) and Murders in the Rue Morgue.

These movies feature much darker topics such as torture, satanism, ghastly murders, and some real chills. They are aged and a product of the studio system but still very very enjoyable. Lugosi was at his best outside of his signature Dracula cape. He really showed his acting prowse and played well with Karloff.

I suggest finding both of them. You won't regret it.