Dracula - The Legacy Collection (Dracula / Dracula (1931 Spanish Version) / Dracula's Daughter / Son of Dracula / House of Dracula)

Lot of reviews here and everyone knows the story, so I'll comment on some things from a different angle. You have the option of watching Dracula with an optional soundtrack by Philip Glass performed by the Kronos Quartet. Having studied Philip Glass while majoring in music composition at a music conservatory, I am familiar with many of his works, and was curious to see if his style of composition would work with this movie. I'm sad to say it does not. Glass is known for repetition and variation of motifs. I first thought it might just work with the film because his music, with all of it's repetitive eighth notes might coincide with the hypnotic state cast by Dracula over his subjects. But there are only certain scenes when Dracula actually performs his hypnotic casting, but Glass' driving eighth notes repeating over and over with very little relief just amounts to driving you mad -- I could only take about 20 minutes of it and had to switch back the original sound track. It's not just Glass' style, it just doesn't sound like it was composed to "add" emotional depth to the scenes; instead, it is in the foreground and is almost constantly playing and comes across like a contemporary musical composition being showcased with the movie Dracula projected in the background. To make matters worse, it is very loud compared to the actor's speech, so there are some quite scenes where you actually miss what the character is saying because the string quartet drowns them out.Here's the sad part: for this optional soundtrack, Universal cleaned up the noisy background hiss of the original and processed it in Digital Dolby, but did nothing to clean up the original soundtrack -- how lame is that? Well, I'm willing to listen to the noisy background of the original just to be rid of a very unsuccessful "soundtrack" that draws attention to itself and actually detracts from the movie instead of enhancing it. Isn't it a mystery how Hollywood operates? You just gotta wonder sometimes. I understand there are costs and profits at stake for everything you do, but wouldn't you think for a classic like this they would run the film through one of the many computerized digital correction facilities that are available these days to correct, cleanup, and enhance both the visual and audio aspects of these old, historic films? Instead, they blow the money to have someone compose a contemporary soundtrack!?! Crazy, isn't it?This review is already too long, but let me just mention that I had been curious for awhile to see the Spanish production that I've heard so much about as being superior. Personally, I did not think it was superior. The actor that plays Dracula has big ears and always seems to have some sort of goofy smile - I found nothing sinister, suave, or hypnotic about him. Nor did I find the lighting or camera angles more dramatic. The actor who plays Renfield, while found in the cargo section of the boat is just laughing like he heard a really funny joke, nothing scary there or implication that he's insane, whereas, Dwight Frye's acting in the same scene (in the American production), when the police open the hatch and look down into the cargo area, there's Renfield staring up at them with eyes wide open in a trance and he's letting out a frighting half groan, half laugh as only someone who is deeply demented and raving mad would do. What I did find interesting about the Spanish version was that it contained more dialogue and explained some scenes in greater detail. I think part of the mystique that makes the American version so eerie is it's silence and minimal dialogue. Remember, it's director, Tod Browning had just come from directing silent pictures where visually the set and actors had to convey what would be normally be revealed through dialogue. And it's this "non-wordiness" that is very effective in adding mystique and suspense that culminates in a film that penetrates a deeper and lingering horror that is so much more successful than the graphic slice-n-dice, blood, gut and gore movies that comprise the horror movies of today.

What's better to do on a dark and stormy night than to turn on the DVD and watch some horror movies right? This is the ultimate collection of classic Universal vampire horror! Whether you choose the original 1931 version of Dracula with Bela Lugosi, the 1931 Spanish version with Carlos Villarías, 1936's Dracula's Daughter featuring Gloria Holdent as the count's daughter Countess Marya Zaleska, 1943's Son of Dracula with Lon Chaney Jr playing Count Alucard (Dracula spelled backwards), or 1945's House of Dracula featuring John Carradine as the undead Dracula together with Frankenstein, and the Wolfman! All of the movies in this set had a two channel mono soundtrack with English, Spanish, and French subtitles. Dracula also has an optional original score for the movie writen by Phillip Glass and preformed by the Kronos Quartet in 5.1. Though this sounded very good, and the music fit with the movie, I prefer the original soundtrack that I grew up with.The sound quality was about what you would expect for movies of this age. There was some hiss and the occasional instance of background noise, but these were not distracting. The dialog was clear and easy to hear, and the sound effects, while not forceful and dynamic, did not distort. Dracula had the worst sound of the lot, with a good amount of hiss and many pops in some areas, which was unfortunate. Overall, a good sounding set of movies.The extras from the original releases are all present in this set, a wise movie on Universal's part. They originally provided a very comprehensive set of bonus material, and I was very glad to see them all included.There is also a new 6 ½ minute promotional piece with writer/director Stephen Sommers talking about the Dracula movies interspersed with clips from the originals and his new monster movie, Van Helsing. This was a fluff piece, and I can't see myself watching it again.There is a 35-minute featurette, The Road to Dracula, hosted by Carl Laemmle's neice, Carla. This is a great documentary covering the history of Dracula from the original novel, the play, Nosferatu, and the making of the 1931 film. There is a lot of information in this bonus, a top notch extra.Film Historian David J. Skal provides a commentary track to Dracula. This is a great track, with Skal providing information not only on the making of Dracula, but the differences between the film version in and the novel and play. He makes comparisons between the original shooting script and what made it to the final cut, and compares the English and Spanish versions. If only all commentaries could be this informative.There is also a picture gallery with production photos and movie posters, and trailers to all the movies.Wish we have vampire movies like this now!

Dracula begins his reign of terror in this boxset of 5 classic movies. An excellent collection of classic black and white horror movies, starting with the original 1931 version of Dracula starring Bela Legosi. The first ever official Dracula movie, not counting Nosferatu, which was Dracula in all but name due to rights issues, is a straight adaptation of Bram Stoker's classic novel seeing Jonathan Harker come to Transylvania and meeting the mysterious Count Dracula. One of the best horror movies ever made, this has lots of atmosphere and an excellent performance from Bela Legosi, arguably the best Dracula of them all. The sequels aren't as good but are still a very enjoyable collection of classic early horror movies. Dracula's Daughter is next, picking up where Dracula left off with Van Helsing the only surviving character from the original film coming up against a woman claiming to be Dracula's Daughter. Son Of Dracula is next with a mysterious count who may or may not be Dracula, with Lon Chaney taking over the role and doing a decent job. House Of Frankenstein is a crossover movie seeing Dracula, the Wolf Man and Frankenstein's Monster all in the same movie with references to Frankenstein Meets The Wolf Man, this is the first ever cinematic universe decades before Marvel came along with their cinematic universe and sees John Carradine, probably the weakest Dracula in this set but still decent play Dracula though this is really more of a Frankenstein movie. Another crossover movie, House Of Dracula, sees Dracula and the Wolf Man seek cures for their condition finishes off the set and there's also the Spanish version of the original Dracula with a new score by Phillip Glass and documentaries too. Forget sparkly vampires, these are proper vampire movies that still stand up very well.

Atmospheric tales that require your attention at all times.Now I have a mystery here that I hope someone can solve, on my copy the Spanish version* (It says on the cardboard case) is on the same disc as Dracula's daughter, but no matter how and where I look there is no sign of it!!!Has it been dematerilised by contact with sunlight or what?* Mystery solved it's only on the Blu-ray.What your money buys on this collection is;Dracula (1931)Dracula's Daughter (1936)Son of Dracula (1943)House of Frankenstein (1944)House of Dracula (1945)

The DVD contains almost all the Universal Dracula movies:Dracula (With the option of a score)Dracula (Spanish Version)Dracula's DaughterSon of DraculaHouse of Dracula(It should be noted that House of Frankenstein which features Dracula is on the Frankenstein legacy collection)It would have been good if they included the Abbot and Costello monster movies for sheer completions sake. Probably the biggest problem is on the original Dracula is still censored for some reason while other releases are uncut, although the movie is still watchable, Renfield's screams are cut out along with Dracula's death groans being shortened slightly. Also it has a normal and a horrible flipper disc, it would have been better if they just had 3 ordinary one sided discs.I'm such a sucker for those legacy collection box-set's I plan to buy all 6 because I love them so much (though the Creature from the black lagoon one seems to be quite rare and expensive for some reason) they look so awesome with the window cover and how the inside is kinda like a book, they look pretty neat when placed next to each other and don't take up very much room. Highly recommended.

I HOPED TO HAVE A WHOLE COLLECTION OF OLD DRACULAS BUT ONE OF THE DVDS WONT PLAY OR EVEN READ ON MY COMPUTER. ITS A DUFF . (HOUSE OF DRACULA).

Very nice old movie