NOTE: The below Blu-ray captures were taken directly from the Blu-ray disc.

ADDITION: Eureka Blu-ray (July 2022): Eureka have transferred three Universal Horrors to Blu-ray. as part of their 'Universal Terror - Three films starring Boris Karloff'. It is cited as "Night Key and The Black Castle presented from 2K scans of fine grain film elements | The Climax presented from a 2K scan of the interpositive". The first Blu-ray is dual-layered and has Night Key (1937) and The Climax (1944.)  The second Blu-ray is single-layered housing The Black Castle (1952.)

Night Key and The Climax have already been released in the US by Shout Factory! in their 'Universal Horror Collection: Volume 4' Blu-ray package (reviewed HERE.) The Black Castle was released on Blu-ray in Shout! Factory's 'Universal Horror Collection: Volume 6' (reviewed HERE.) The image, subject to Universal's source is almost exactly the same in terms of 1080P quality. If forced to choose , I am going with with the Eureka's HD presentation that exports the grain support slightly better in-motion. They all have max'ed out bitrates but I was always suspicious of the flat-line bitrates of the Shout! Factory - this appears to be a visual step-up although many viewers and systems may not highlight the marginal upgrade. The heavy textures and layered contrast are appreciated. We've compared some frame captures below.

NOTE: We have added 78 more large resolution Blu-ray captures (in lossless PNG format) for DVDBeaver Patrons HERE

On their Blu-ray, Eureka use linear PCM dual-mono tracks (24-bit) in the original English language for all three films. Effects are generally modest from electronic buzzing to snarling imported alliogators. Scores use some stock music as well as by Edward Ward (Mystery of Edwin Drood, Night Must Fall, Boys Town) in The Climax with a few Franz Schubert musical Opera numbers performed. It sounds consistent and clean in the uncompressed transfer. Eureka offer optional English (SDH) subtitles on their Region 'B' Blu-ray.

The Eureka Blu-ray offers new audio commentary tracks on Night Key and The Climax with the pairing of Kevin Lyons (The Encyclopedia of Fantastic Film and Television) and Jonathan Rigby (author of American Gothic) and a new commentary on The Black Castle with Stephen Jones (The Art of Pulp Horror: An Illustrated History) and author / critic Kim Newman (Vampire Genevieve (Warhammer Horror.) Lyons and Rigby cover the cast and production details, Jones and Newman discuss the unofficial prequel The Strange Door made in 1951, how these films were regarded as westerns in period costumes as well as significantly more. There are also stills galleries and trailers for Night Key and The Climax plus the package has a limited edition collector’s booklet featuring new writing by Karloff expert Stephen Jacobs (author of Boris Karloff: More Than a Monster.)

'Night Key' had a kind of a high-tech appeal for the late 1930s as a science-fiction crime effort. This was the last film in which Boris Karloff was billed by only his last name, a policy that Universal had begun with The Old Dark House in 1932 and had continued for eight films across six years during the height of his career. 'The Climax' is a unique musical-based horror with a mad Doctor and manipulative hypnosis as a plot device. My favorite is the atmospheric gothic 'The Black Castle' that has delightfully dark art direction. With Joseph Pevney leaving in a huff it launched the feature-director career of Nathan Juran (The Brain from Planet Arous, Jack the Giant Killer, The 7th Voyage of Sinbad, First Men in the Moon.) So they are all Universal and have Karloff to varying degrees of screen time. New commentaries and a super triple-feature on the Eureka Blu-ray package make it very desirable to fans of these genre gems.

Gary Tooze