The Mummy (31) / Creature From The Black Lagoon [DVD]

Although nearly 20 years separate The Mummy and The Creature From The Black Lagoon, they are very similar films, and once watched, their inclusion on the same DVD makes sense.

Creature from the Black Lagoon is slightly better than the 1932 Mummy film. Although Boris Karloff is uncanny as the Mummy, and wears some incredible makeup, it is a stilted film, and quite boring. Not a lot happens, and there's a lot of talking about in rooms. It does pale in comparison to the recent Stephen Sommer's remake, but as a historical film, it is worth a watch, and be put in any avid DVD collectors library. It does have a decent ending, which more than makes up for the boring sections.

Creature From the Black Lagoon however, is benefited from a faster pace, more action, and actual location filming. Carrying on the trend for great makeup, the Creature looks brilliant, a real classic monster.

The underwater scenes are fantastic, and although the storyline is virtually a copy of the Mummy (in both films a centuries old monster tries to capture their love) it has more detail than the Mummy. However, it would be nice to know a bit of backstory to the Creature, like how he got to the Black Lagoon, but that's just minor criticism.

Again, Creature is another classic film that deserves to be watched. Both films include decent making of documentarys that go into detail about the whole legacy of their respective monsters. There are a bunch of other extras too, trailers, commentaries, that round the package out.

It's another worthwhile, Universal classic monsters DVD collection.

'The Mummy' is one of Karloff's best films, an iconic role that has never been bettered, in my opinion, with the possible exception of the films made in the 90's, which are undeniably more entertaining, with superb special effects. But making due allowances, this is the definitive Mummy film. Karloff's eyes burn malevolently in this classic, which is nowadays creepy rather than genuinely scary, but still stylish and visually striking. Karloff plays Im Ho Tep, an ancient Egyptian priest buried alive for the sacrilege of trying to revive a vestal virgin, and revived 3,700 years later by British archaeologists. Assuming the moniker of Ardath Bey, he sets off in search of the living reincarnation of his lost love (played by Zita Johann), with murderous results. This is a superbly atmospheric film and one which rightly takes a place amongst Karloff's very best roles, like 'Frankenstein', 'The Ghoul', 'The Black room', and 'The Raven'.
I bought this DVD primarily for 'The Mummy'.The presence here of another vintage classic, 'The Creature From the Black Lagoon' is a bonus but I never thought much of it when I first saw it over twenty years ago and I was similarly unimpressed second time round. I know it's considered a great film but it just doesn't float my boat, pardon the pun. I also think it a rather odd film to pair with 'The Mummy' when any of the four universal remakes, like 'The Mummy's Hand' ( or even better, any of the other three starring Lon Chaney Jnr)would have been more appropriate and welcome. But it's worth buying in this format all the same, and it's a pity that 'Creature' isn't in 3D like it was originally. The documentary about 'The Mummy' is quite entertaining too and a great bonus and I recommend viewing this before watching the actual film.

As double-feature creature-features go, at first glance this seems a bit of an odd one. We've got one of the first of the Universal talkie horror classics from 1932, and what is widely regarded as their last real classic from twenty two years later. Two films that are wildly different in tone, aesthetic and content, but taken together are as good a representation as any of Universal's dominance of the monster movies in the golden age of the silver screen.

'The Mummy' was the directorial debut of Karl Freund, best known as cinematographer on Todd Browning's 'Dracula.' Far from the stale, largely stagebound atmosphere of Browning's film - in which, arguably, Freund was more responsible for the most memorable sequences, being a pioneer of camera movement and German expressionist lighting - 'The Mummy' is told on a grander, lusher scale, spreading its tale over a wide variety of locations. Admittedly, as with many films of the 1930's, it may be considered a bit slow and understated by modern standards; devotees of the more recent Brendan Fraser movies may be disappointed by the lack of action. But where the 90's movies lacked intellectual and emotional content, the original more than has its share, Imhotep being arguably the first sympathetic monster of the talkie era thanks to the wonderfully evocative performance of the legendary Boris Karloff, allowed to make use of his marvellous voice in a manner that 'Frankenstein' could not allow. He's more than aided by a sultry turn from Zita Johann, sadly a largely forgotten actress who could easily have been one of the great leading ladies. All these things considered, it's easy to overlook that the plot doesn't differ significantly from 'Dracula' (right down to the fact that David Manners and Edward Van Sloan are essentially playing the same characters they did in the earlier film!), mainly because, in this instance, Freund and company tell the story so much better than Browning was able to.

'Creature From The Black Lagoon,' to use an appropriately aquatic turn of phrase, is a whole different kettle of fish. Directed by Jack Arnold, who had previously made 'It Came From Outer Space' and would go on to 'Tarantula' and 'The Incredible Shrinking Man,' it pulled off the tricky feat of remaining that bit mythic and supernatural enough to fit the classic Universal mythos, but still sci-fi enough to sit comfortably in the era of flying saucers and giant atomic bugs. Just as 'The Mummy' retold 'Dracula,' 'Creature' follows more or less the same plot as 'King Kong,' as a group of would-be pioneers go wandering off into the heart of the wilderness in search of a mysterious beast, only for said beast to become infatuated with the beautiful woman in tow: the very lovely Julie Adams fitting nicely into the Fay Wray role, as well as a rather fetching white swimsuit! Far from the slow pace and sombre mood of 'The Mummy,' here the emphasis is on spectacle all the way: the jungle location and underwater photography, still impressive today, must have been all the more breathtaking when the film was originally presented in 3D. The Creature himself is a fantastic creation, a major step forward in full-body humanoid design that certainly paved the way for the likes of Alien and Predator. On top of that, there's a pretty compelling story here too, the tensions between the human cast (in particular a very believable love triangle) as key to the drama as the Creature himself.

No Universal Horror devotee should need any persausion to pick this up; this is an essential purchase for any serious monster movie fan.