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| Frank
Carlson, Julia Adams, Richard Denning, Antonio Moreno, Nestor
Paiva |
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Anamorphic
widescreen |
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Dolby Digital
5.1 |
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DTS |
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Trailer(s) |
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Featurette(s) |
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Documentary |
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Audio commentary
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Deleted scenes
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Concept art
/ storyboards |
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Multi-angle
feature |
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Lucas (Nestor Paiva): I can
tell you something about this place. The boys around here call it
"The Black Lagoon." Only they say nobody has ever come
back alive to prove it.
A bizarre and dangerous creature is
discovered by scientists in South-America.
 Having
degenenated into an endless series of Abbott and Costello comedies
by the 1940s, the former glory of the Universal horror movie experienced
something of a renaissance with the advent of the B-movie in the
1950s. Creature from the Black Lagoon was one of the first
and most influential one of this new range of horror pictures, designed
to offer cheap thrills for movie theater audiences that were as
yet unavailable on early family-oriented TV programming. Boosted
by the use of the 3D-gimmick and some impressive underwater photography,
this cheaply produced quickie has built up quite a reputation over
the years, even spawning two forgettable sequels. While it offers
none of the class or brilliance that made the horror pictures from
the early 1930s such classics, this much-beloved monster did set
the new paradigm for monster movies for years to come, and has become
an icon in its own right. |
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The eight movies that were selected
as Universal's 'Classic Monster Collection' were released on Region
1 DVD some years ago, but have since gone out of print and have
been put on moratorium by Universal, awaiting a re-release.
These same eight titles were recently released on DVD for Region
2 and 4, available both separately and as part of an eight-disc
box set. The R2/4 release of Dracula doesn't include the
Spanish version of the film, but otherwise there are no major differences
with the original Region 1 versions.
The fullscreen image is framed
at its original aspect ratio of approx. 1.33:1. The print used for
this transfer is in remarkably good shape, resulting in an impressively
clean presentation with good contrast, deep blacks and hardly a
scratch in it.
The mono sound mix is presented in Dolby Digital 2.0. The result
is satisfactory without being particularly impressive.
As with the other titles released
in Universal's Classic Monster Collection, the film's histrocial
context and production details are elaborated with detail in a very
thorough documentary and an excellent audio commentary
by film historian and monster movie expert Scott MacQueen. An
animated image gallery with the film's major poster designs
and a selection of publicity stills, together with the theatrical
trailer rounds out these solid extras.The animated menu screen features
nicely chosen cues from the score.
Dan
Hassler-Forest
Reviewed:
December 22, 2002
Click
here for IMDB info on The
Creature from the Black Lagoon.
Click here
to return to the front page.
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