Boris Karloff & Bela Lugosi 4-Movie Horror Collection [DVD]

Well, I personally enjoyed these as a child, now my Grandson has a nice collection for his enjoyment. Both Grandparents have watched these with he and his sister; we all had a great time.

Here are four movies that Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi made during their time together at Universal. To simplify matters, I will only tell you the names of their characters at the beginning of the review. After that I will refer to them as Karloff and Lugosi.THE BLACK CAT-Karloff is Hjalmar Poelzig. Lugosi is Dr. Vitus Werdegast. This is one of the strangest movies ever made. It's so strange, even I don't understand it. It starts out with a couple of American newlyweds, Peter and Joan Alison (David Manners and Julie Bishop) honeymooning in Hungary, of all places. They share a train compartment with Lugosi, who is returning to the town he fought for after 15 years as a prisoner of war. When the bus going to their hotel crashes in a storm and Joan is injured, they must take refuge in the home of Karloff. There Lugosi not only re-lives his fear of black cats, but discovers that Karloff is keeping both Lugosi's wife and daughter in some sort of suspended animation. If that's not enough, Karloff is also the head of a Satanic cult, which every once in a while meets to sacrifice a virgin (or something like that).If that weren't enough, he refuses to let the newlyweds leave, and Lugosi and Karloff play a game of chess for Joan's freedom. Guess who wins?THE RAVEN-Karloff is Edmond Bateman, an escaped criminal. Lugosi is Dr. Peter Vollin. Wealthy Judge Thatcher (Samuel S. Hinds) asks Lugosi to come out of retirement to save the life of his daughter, injured in a car wreck. After first refusing, he finally agrees. After saving her life, he falls in love with her. A huge fan of the work of Edgar Allen Poe, he pictures her as "Lenore," and plots to kill her fiance and her father in his dungeon, inspired by the author. He has even built the machine from "The Pit and the Pendulum." The victim (in this case Judge Thatcher) is strapped to a table as a pendulum with a sharp knife attached slowly descends.To help him with his work, Lugosi uses Karloff, a wanted criminal. He changes his face so he is "a hideous monster," but promises to change him back if he will do his bidding.THE INVISIBLE RAY-Karloff is Dr. Janos Rukh. Lugosi is Dr. Felix Benet. To me, this is the most interesting of the four movies. Karloff has requested that a group of scientists, including Lugosi, go to Africa to find the site of an ancient meteorite, which contains a substance called Radium X. In small amounts, it has great ability to heal, but in larger quantities it destroys everything it touches. Leaving the expedition to work alone, Karloff receives a deadly dose of Radium X. Not only is he himself dying, but everything he touches also dies.Lugosi comes up with an antidote, which may keep him alive if he continues to take it. Meanwhile, Diane Rukh (Frances Drake), Karloff's wife, has fallen in love with Ronald Drake (Frank Lawton). As Karloff becomes increasingly mad and seeks to kill the "thieves" who stole Radium X (even Lugosi, who was his only hope of staying alive), Karloff's mother smashes the test tubes containing the antidote. "My son, you have broken the first law of science."BLACK FRIDAY-Karloff is Dr. Ernest Sovac. Lugosi is Eric Marney. When Professor George Kingsley (Stanley Ridges) is run over by a car escaping the police, brain surgeon Dr. Sovac performs an illegal operation. He transfers part of Red Cannon's brain (a gangster also injured in the crash) into that of the professor. One of the side effects of the operation is that every so often the kindly professor turns into a vicious gangster. During one of these episodes Karloff learns that Cannon has hidden away half a million dollars. With that money, he could build a brand new laboratory. As the gangster's brain takes over the body of the kindly professor, he becomes more and more vicious, eventually attacking Karloff's daughter, for which Karloff murders him. For that act and the illegal operation, he is given the chair.What is really disappointing about this movie is Lugosi's role. He has a relatively small part as one of the members of the gang searching for Red Cannon's money. And when Red catches up to him and locks him a closet (with no air), he doesn't last long.By all accounts, Boris Karloff was one of the nicest men in the picture business. Which means he was a very good actor. When you think about it, what is an actor's most important job? Isn't it to convince you that he's somebody else? A reporter once asked Gracie Allen if Jack Benny was really cheap. She replied, "Am I stupid?"

A nice 4 film collection out of the 8 movies Bella and Karloff both featured together. All the movies are good but "The Black Cat" and the "Invisible Ray" are definitely the highlights of this quatro for me.It's really a shame Universal hasn't given "The Black Cat" a proper 4K Bluray restoration; as it's every bit as good, if not better than either "Dracula" or "Frankenstein" in showing the talents of both actors ... not to mention its infinitely more creepy, sinister, and darkly gothic.Both dvd discs played ok but they did act up with periodic tracking issues in my player, and I think the sound quality in "The Black Cat" was better in the Universal Vault Series dvd.

I'm a huge fan of Lugosi and Karloff (and horror classics in general). I was looking for "The Black Cat" on DVD and ended finding this gem with 3 other movies they did together. I'm very happy with the product-everything came in great condition -and the price point was awesome. I would definitely recommend this to anybody

First things first. I paid less than 10 bucks for this 2 dvd set in January 2022. Two discs each with two movies and each movie in this set is only a little over an hour long so we aren't going to see many compression artifacts here.These are the same movies as on the Universal Horror Collection Volume 1 Blu-Ray but are significantly cheaper. I would highly recommend saving $30 (or more) and buying this dvd set.The movies vary in quality with the oldest generally being the best.The Black Cat (1934) was directed by Edgar Ullmer who was generally a master of his craft (and of making better pictures than their budgets).The Raven (1935) - another Hollywood movie 'borrowing' the title of the famous Poe story but bearing little else in resemblance. The plot is kind of goofy but see Black Friday for a goofier plot! Karloff and Lugosi are great in this.The Invisible Ray (1936) - Science. Well not really. Another fun picture with some nice mad scientist in the lab visuals.Black Friday (1940) - Noir meets horror. Goofy plot. And I do mean goofy but another fun romp with two of early horror's biggest legends. Lugosi's role is fairly small here.

The DVD is perfect. The movies are classic horror.You get five stars.Thank you.

All DVDs played great enjoyed watching them

My favorite on this DVD was The Raven, It was short and fun and i oved the homage to Dracula and Frankenstein. Second favorite was The Black Cat. Bela Lugosi steals scenes. IMHO, The Invisible Ray and Black Friday were the two weakest of the bunch. Still fun for the price.

Case came busted, really low quality transfer, any more than $5/film woulad have been a rip off.

Two classic films and two not so great but well worth the purchase.

Leider sin die drei anderen Filme der Box eher mäßig; Lieferung aber o.k.