Mad Monster Party

MAD MONSTER PARTY (1967) is a stop-motion picture picture with a vaudevillian's philosophy: if you don't like the current joke, don't worry - there's another coming right on its heels.

Here's the setup: Dr. Frankenstein is having all the best monsters (Dracula, the Wolf Man, Phyllis Diller) over to the castle for a bash. Like any good party, this one is a hotbed of machiavellian maneuvering, cynical doublecrossing, and animated-skeleton rock bands ripping off the Beatles.

It's cute, it's inventive, & my kid loves it as much as I did when I was five. What more could you ask for?

Abbot and Costello Meet Frankenstein

While ABBOT AND COSTELLO MEET FRANKENSTEIN has some clever lines for the grownups (Chaney: "You don't understand! When the full moon rises, I turn into a wolf!" Costello: "You and forty million other guys.") and some effective physical comedy for the kids (the bits in the House of Horrors and the Landing), it's a singularly unambitious picture that cheapens Universal's classic monsters.

I understand why Karloff passed on the chance to reprise his role as the Monster in this feature. This movie takes Universal's monsters and makes a mockery of them, reducing any sense of pathos or horror they may once have had and mining them for cheap laughs. One can almost see the paychecks dangling offscreen whenever Chaney's Wolfman and/or Lugosi's Dracula are around, and one has to wonder what went through their minds as they enacted their climactic battle.

Nevertheless, my 6-year-old liked it, and the grownups did chuckle now and again. When you fire up ABBOT AND COSTELLO MEET FRANKENSTEIN, rest assured that you're going to get what you expect.

House of Frankenstein

Clocking in at just over an hour, HOUSE OF FRANKENSTEIN is a rather anemic finale to the Frankenstein films. It's a combination Dracula / Werewolf / Frankenstein movie, and it does a singularly clumsy job of weaving its threads into a coherent whole. If this is the best Universal could do with its monsters, the studio chose well in giving them a rest.

Dracula (1979)

The 1979 DRACULA has a few strikes against it. Its Jonathan Harker is a charisma sump, its Mina is utterly unremarkable, and its effects border on the ridiculous. Nevertheless, the production has one thing going for it, and that one thing is enough to carry all the dead weight: Frank Langella.

Langella’s Dracula is neither hideous lich nor creepy eurotrash. He's supercool; a real lady killer who has charmed his way through the centuries and isn't about to be stopped by doddering old Van Helsing or his bumbling pal Harker. Don't get me wrong: Olivier is fine in his pay-the-bills portrayal of Van Helsing, and he does have a terrific moment when he almost succumbs to Dracula's will, but Langella just plain shines here.

What a pleasant surprise.