Night Monster and House of Horrors are compared with Eureka's 2023 'Creeping Horror' Blu-ray set HERE

Night Key and The Climax are compared with Eureka's 'Universal Terror' Blu-ray set HERE

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

ADDITION: Shout! Factory Blu-ray (March 2020): Shout! Factory have transferred four more Universal vintage horror films to Blu-ray in their Volume 4 package; Night Key (1937), Night Monster (1942), The Climax (1944) and House of Horrors (1946).

Volume One Blu-ray (Reviewed HERE) had The Black Cat (1934), The Raven (1935), The Invisible Ray (1936) and Black Friday (1940) while Volume Two Blu-ray (Reviewed HERE) offered Murders in the Zoo (1933), The Mad Doctor of Market Street (1942), The Strange Case of Doctor Rx (1942) and The Mad Ghoul (1943). Volume 3 (Reviewed HERE) had Tower of London (1939), The Black Cat (1941), Horror Island (1941) and Man Made Monster (1941).

Like the other 3 volumes, these are housed on their own separate Blu-ray discs each with max'ed out bitrates for the relatively shorter films (totaling only 4 3/4 hours worth of features in this package.) Frankly, I am not crazy about the flat-line bitrate graphs which can be an indication of digitization, but let's examine them individually:

The oldest film in Volume 4, Night Key, is described as being from a "New 2K Scan Of A Fine Grain Element" and I would say it looks very strong, perhaps the best, with heavy textures and solid contrast supporting a lovely clean film-like HD presentation. It may be a bit horizontally stretched compared to the DVD, but is in the correct 1.37:1 aspect ratio.

The next film, The Night Monster has some inconsistencies with its contrast and a few noticeable speckles. It is also advertised as a "New 2K Scan Of A Fine Grain Element". It is surprisingly cropped on the right and top edges beside the DVD, gaining on the bottom and left sides. The visuals carry some unexplainable softness in spots. Overall though, entirely watchable with, like all 4 transfers, a max'ed out bitrate and an excellent image in-motion.

The third film, The Climax, is in color and from a "NEW 2K Scan Of The Interpositive". This was Technicolor and gets some of that vibrancy through the 1080P transfer. Colors can be very impressive with only minor bleeding - certainly acceptable for the age of the film. It really does looks spectacular at times. A genuinely highly pleasing bump to HD. See our comparative screen captures for the substantial increase in image quality.

The last film is House of Horrors - which I may have liked the best of the four. There appears to be some digitization here. It can look a bit muddy at times and this is the only one of the four without a citing of the source. It may simply be an SD-bump but, regardless, doesn't carry the film-like qualities of the first three, imo. Without being overly picky pulling the magnifying glass out - most fans will appreciate the dark, shadowy hi-res video appearance. 

On their Blu-rays, Shout! Factory use DTS-HD Master 2.0 channel (24-bit) audio transfer tracks for all 4 films. The audio is, authentically, flat with minor depth exported. Scores are often uncredited (stock) by the likes of Edward Ward (Mystery of Edwin Drood, Night Must Fall, Boys Town), David Raksin (Separate Tables, Laura, Bigger Than Life, The Big Combo), Hans J. Salter (Man in the Shadow, Man Without a Star, The Killer that Stalked New York, The Strange Door, Cover Up, Man Without a Star, Scarlet Street, The Land Unknown, The War Lord, The Mole People, The Strange Case of Doctor Rx), Frank Skinner (The Appaloosa, Madame X, Magnificent Obsession, Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein, All That Heaven Allows, Thunder Bay), William Lava (The Deadly Mantis, Moonrise, S.O.S. Tidal Wave, War Arrow, The Night Riders, Retreat, Hell) etc. They sound quite clean and consistent with minor depth that helps establish atmosphere and tone. Shout! Factory offer optional, gaudy yellow, English subtitles on their four Region 'A' Blu-rays.

Aside from stills and production galleries plus trailers, the Shout! Factory Blu-rays offer new commentaries... by Tom Weaver (who is always fun and filled with anecdotes) and Dr. Robert J. Kiss on Night Key. We get Gary D. Rhodes (author of Bela Lugosi - Dreams and Nightmares) on Night Monster, always delightful Kim Newman and Stephen Jones on The Climax and Scott Gallinghouse on House of Horrors. On that last Blu-ray is a 22-minute documentary by Gallinghouse entitled The Creeper – Rondo Hatton At Universal. He knows his stuff as he is also the author of Rondo Hatton: Beauty Within the Brute. Gallinghouse can talk with authority on the actor Rondo Hatton, a victim of a disfiguring disease who required no extensive make-up for his “Brute Man” characters. Hatton died at only 51-years of age. The package also contains a 12-page leaflet with photos.   

As the Universal Horror Volumes rise in number - the films seem to lessen in quality with mostly lovable 'B' pictures remaining. I'm not really complaining - to have these vintage, sometimes fun, horrors of the 30's and 40's on Blu-ray with commentaries is very appealing. I can turn the lights down and throw one of these on at any time and get an hour's worth of enjoyment. Fans know what to expect by now and Shout! Factory's Blu-ray package is recommended to the vintage-era horror fans who appreciate these gems of a time long gone by. In many ways, I wish those days would return.

Gary Tooze