Universal Monsters Legacy Edition DVD's Vol 1.

Everyone should know the stories, So I'm not going to give you a review of "Dracula" "Frankenstein" "The Creature From the Black Lagoon" or "The Wolfman" what I intend to review is the legacy edition of these films, which include all of the sequels tothese films, commentaries by film historians who interviewed actors from the films before they passed, documentaries, as well as featurettes showing how the movie "Van Helsing" directed by Stephen Sommers adapted these monsters to his movie.

Stephen Sommers is someone who always confuses me. The first movie that I saw of his was "Deep Rising," and it was pretty good. I also

really enjoyed the first installment of "The Mummy." Then things went downhill, like way downhill......like gouge your eyes out downhill. "The Mummy Returns" alternate title "Ruin everything good about the first movie" was terrible, the ONLY thing I found entertaining was John Hannah(the brother character) and his relationship with his nephew who was annoyi

ng as shit, except when talking to John Hannah. Then he made "Van Helsing," and I was hoping for a fun, adventurous monster movie not unlike "Deep Rising" or the first installment of "The Mummy" and what did I get? Horses that defy the laws of physics, terrible character design, and a young hip and cool Van Helsing. Now don't get me wrong, I have no pro

blem having Van Helsing young, it would be hard to market a movie where the main character was an old man who spent a large portion of the movie looking for his arthritis medication and complaining about how young people were better in his day. This is a little off topic and a lot of a rant, but basically all the featurette's on these DVD's are basically Stephen Sommers saying "Well I figured we could take this character and make him a little more bad ass for today's younger audiences" and he fails. I actually feel like make-up from almost 100 years ago holds

up better then mo

st of the crap from "Van Helsing" ok this isn't even a review anymore it's just a rant about how I hate Stephen Sommers. Regardless, these featurette's are by far the worst part of these DVD's. Had they been left off I wouldn't of cared. Either way I'll leave you with a comparison of t

he new "Bad ass" frankenstein and let you compare it to th

e Karloff, Jack Pierce from 1931.

That is so bad ass it's incredible! Not to be understated (should've found a smaller image of the Van Helsing one but gimme a break i'm trying to add a little something extra and if you don't like it you can.......complain) but I believe the Jack Pierce frankenstein he actually does look like a man stitched together from Corpses in a wacko's free time. The Van Helsing one had a GLOWING FRICKING ORB in his chest? what for? where did Dr. Frankenstein get that glowing orb and why did he feel it was important to implant it in his chest. For a man coated in make up and prosthetic pieces Karloff was very emotive, and did a wonderful job of getting you to care about a monster without ever saying a SINGLE LINE OF DIALOGUE! ranting again sorry.

next review I'm going to be covering the commentaries, and then I'll wrap it all up with an overview the DVD's in general.