Thought I'd start a thread in the spirit of the upcoming holiday.
When I was growing up, even though they were made in the early 30's and I grew up in the early 80's, the Universal Monsters were still a big deal. Dracula, Frankenstein, Wolfman, Phantom of the Opera, Mummy, Bride of Frankenstein, and the Creature from the Black Lagoon are all lasting images from my childhood. It seemed like every late night Creature Feature, or on some Saturday afternoon, one of these movies was showing, and we always watched them. I remember every year a channel would show Creature from the Black Lagoon in 3D, and we would ride our bikes to 7-11 after tee ball practice to get the free glasses. Some of my earliest memories of being scared are sneaking downstairs, when I was like 7 years old, to catch a midnight showing of Frankenstein while my parents were asleep.
I find it a little bit sad that they seem to be fading from popular culture. Universal has tried to reboot them, but those movies are unrecognizable from the original characters. Movies have come a long way since the 30's, and I'm not sure those characters translate well to today, but the Universal Monsters seemed to survive at least a half century before fading out of popular culture.
Any other fans of the Universal Monsters?
None of those classics hold up well to me though. A fun movie I need to acquire is Shadow of the Vampire. Ties in old and new and you can't go wrong with Nosferatu!
In a lot of ways, I guess the original Universal Monsters Universe was the first of it's kind... As they all seemed to cross over into each other's world in the two decades that followed the original movies.
But nothing beats those original films... Although I agree with Randy, they don't hold up beyond nostalgia purposes. However, they are classic cinema, some of the very first, and deserve their place in history.
The story certainly does, but I have yet to see a movie do it justice, yet.
I didn't tell my wife this, but one of the reasons I pushed for the name Elsa for my daughter is because of Elsa Lanchester, who I just thought was beautiful as the Bride.
Hearts and kidneys are tinker toys! I am talking about the central nervous system!
I've watched all the classics with my kids (now 15) and they loved them even though they were "cheesy" to them.
Agreed. So many of us grew up on these characters, despite being 50 years younger than them....
I'm not really sure that the newer generation of kids would even know who half of them are.
Really? Cruise still getting big parts is a mystery to me. But he gets them.