Simply put, the very beginning of the movie in the Talbot Crypt. The fall evening,the glowing moon,the eerie music,and the Wolfman's transformation,as the moon outside the crypt shines through. TOO COOL.
share[deleted]
Imagine being a child and not yet having the ability to ff! Doubly scary! I definitely loved watching all these movies on Saturday afternoons when local affiliates would run them. (chiller theater, creature double feature, thriller, etc.)
shareWeren't those the days? Growing up during the 1960s and 1970s was "monster kid" heaven, what with the movie showcases you mentioned, as well as the monster magazines, music, toys, models, cartoons, comics, etc. I always find myself trying to recapture some of that.
shareLoved the scene where Talbot's hand reaches out and grabs" Freddy Jolly "( Cyril Delevanti )in the Talbot crypt. I can still remenber the look on actor Tom Stevenson's face( the other vagrant ) when Freddy says" It's on me..Help me help "I also grew up watching all those great Universal Horror Films every Friday and Saturday night throughout the 60s and to the mid 70s. It didn't get any better than that. Alas, at about that time, they started vanishing from the television stations in our area. AMC resurrected them back the late 1980s around Halloween. When " Frankenstein Meets The Wolfman " first became available on VHS back in the fall of 1986, I pre-ordered that thing about a month in advance. Couldn't wait to get it. Now we have the whole bunch on DVD from 1931's" Dracula " to 1945's " House Of Dracula " and Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein thrown in for good measure. Great movies and childhood memories
shareYes I'm so grateful to AMC for running the classics every year...but I want a monster marathon throughout the year too! ;p
shareOne summer as kids in a rented cottage we found a large deck of picture cards of the Universal Monsters. We could not have been more thrilled! I wish I could find them on ebay. I can still see the poses. We always referred to that place as the Monster Card house. ;p
shareI had hundreds of monster cards, and lots of issues of Famous Monsters of Filmland magazine. Wish I still had them.....
shareAh, yes. I loved the later afternoon Horror movies they used to show in LA back in the early 1960s. Before my parents would let me watch these movies, I'd sneak next door to watch them with my friend (his mom had no problems with these movies). One of the stations played a different Universal horror film each week. Great fun.
shareI also think the scene where the creature comes to life and gets that sinister smile and look in his eyes is pretty spooky.
Actually, I figured out whay he looks so scary at that moment, and why it is a "moment". In the original shoot, the monster was suppposed to be blind, at least to some degree. In that particular moment I believe he regains full sight for the first time. Scary!
I'm watching this again and that opening sequence is a gem - the opening tracking shot featuring the graverobbers goes on for about 2 minutes or so, revealing the cemetery and its graves, finally coming to the Talbot mausoleum...very well done, considering that this was essentially a low-budget programmer affair.
"I don't use a pen: I write with a goose quill dipped in venom!"---W. Lydecker
To me, the Wolfman is the scariest of all Universal Monsters. Frankenstein and the Mummy are too slow, Dracula is too handsome, the Invisible Man is too human and the Creature is too confined to water. But the Wolfman, yowsa! The image of him wandering around in misty darkness and peeking in windows scares the hell outta me. Brrr!
-L31
That's funny, I always found the wolfman the least threatening...he seemed kinda cute lol. Most of the others freaked me out with Frankenstein at the top. There was something about the slowness that made it even freakier, like when you'd try to run in your nightmares but can't.
shareHave you seen the low budget 70s movie "The Boy Who Cried Werewolf"?
If you don't like the idea of the werewolf wandering around and looking in windows...then don't watch this movie. I recently saw it for the first time on Svengoolie...very creepy!
[deleted]
Yes, the opening of FMTWM is one of the greatest scenes in Universal monster history. I rode through Disneyland's Haunted Mansion recently and was struck by the way the scene was recreated on the ride. I'm talking about the moment when you're moving down from the attic of the Haunted Mansion to the backyard cemetary (like the crane shot from FMTWM). You pass by the cemetary gate and there's a tall lanky guy there, shaking as he holds up a lantern to light the way. You almost expect him to say, "What d'ya think it'll look like, after so many years?"
shareI always thought the opening of the original "Frankenstein" in the cemetery was the scariest scene. The mourners crying, the grim reaper statue, Henry Frankenstein and Fritz hiding, the fat guy shoveling dirt in the grave, the thud of a rock hitting the casket, and then the grave robbers digging it back up again and the casket creaking as they pull it out of the ground, and the crazed look in Henry's face when he says it's waiting for a new life to begin. You guys are nuts - FMTWM doesn't come close to "Frankenstein."
shareI was just watching my DVD of F M T W M and the opening shot reminded me of an interview with a film historian I once saw. I can't remember who he was, but he said he considered the long, horizontal pan shot of the graveyard one of the greated establishing shots in the movies --- ever.
I agree with him and you.
Horror fans,
you guys need to check out this new horror movie host in Houston Texas. Count Pelicula, his website is www.countpelicula.com They show all of the great Universal classics and have an awesome blog where horror is discussed. Check it Out!!!!!!!!!!
Back to what the OP was saying: I would say that I find the original graveyard scene in Frankenstein to be creepier and probably scarier, but that's a nitpick. I love the opening scene of FMTWM too, and to take it a step further, there's nothing that can compare with the general atmosphere of all the non-color Universal horror films...they provide a certain feeling that only B & W can possess, not unlike film noir, but when you add in the monsters and the gothic European settings, and it's a mix that you can only experience with this relatively small number of films.
The atmosphere I speak of is something that even the later movies, for instance both "House Of..."s have, which makes it difficult for me not to love them as well, even if I do agree, cinema-wise, there were diminishing returns the longer they continued making them. I only say this because I know some people really dislike the later films, but I still find they hold my interest.
"The things I do for love..." Jaime Lannister
My mother told me that when she was a kid, she watched this movie on late night television with my aunt (her older sister). My aunt had seen it before. My mother hadn't.
In the opening scene where Talbot's hand reaches up and grabs the graverobber, my aunt sneakily grabbed my mother at the exact same instant, causing terror. LOL
I agree that the opening scene was one of the best in all of the Universal horror films.
Agree completely! The opening scenes are the stuff of nightmares.
shareI'm in total agreement with most of you--there's just something about the atmosphere of most of these old Universal horrors that just can't be beat--the black and white adds tremendously to it--I just don't know if that opening scene in the graveyard and Talbot crypt would have been as effective in color.
I would even say that the graveyard set from this movie was spooky even in the daylight scene when Dr. Mannering and the Inspector go there to investigate.
"Someone's broken into this vault. How long has it been since you were here sergeant?"
"Not for months--no one's died in LLanwelly lately and no one comes here if he doesn't have to."
Yes, the scariest and also most atmospheric scene in the Universal canon. I remember watching this on TV in the 50s and was near paralyzed with fear. Even now I get a chill watching it. Much to appreciate there!
*** Just ignore trolls. Trolls live for replies. If you ignore them they go away. ***
I just told my wife that was the scariest scene that I ever saw as a ten year old when it first came on TV in 57...
shareThe opening is absolutely amazing, but one thing that makes it even scarier is the music when the revived wolf man slowly reaches up and grabs Freddy Jolly. It has a frightening, yet doom-laden feel.
Back in the early 2000s I was making little homemade monster movies with my kids, and we “recreated” this scene in one of our movies. It was fun to build the simple set in our garage.