Halloween Returns To The Brattle

CAMBRIDGE — Halloweeen.  It’s not over till the Bride of Frankenstein screams. The Brattle Theatre is screening six classic Universal horror titles from the 1930s Sunday and Monday featuring three movies made by the great director James Whale on Sunday – “Frankenstein,” “Bride of Frankenstein” and “The Invisible Man.” The Claude Rains film always makes me want to find a pub and have a Bass Ale, a la the villagers upon whom The Man rains down his wrath. It’s actually a horror quartet as “The Mummy” gets in on the monster mash. Boris Karloff, who’s the sympathetic monster in the two “Frankenstein” films, is a very unsympathetic mummy. Though my guess is a lot of less monstrous types would have killed for Karloff’s costar, Zita Johann,  in the ‘30s.

Monday’s two features are the Bela Lugosi “Dracula” and the Spanish version of the film, shot at night after the American version wrapped for the day. Many horror fans prefer the Spanish version. I’m not among them.

By the way, one of the things I dislike about seeing theatrical releases of early horror films is the laughter that it elicits from hipper-than-thou know-nothings. Talk about the living dead. The films should be gloriously alive as the four Frankenstein and Dracula films are new prints.