Val Lewton’s legendary work at RKO mixed icons with future stars. When it came to The Body Snatcher, he gave viewers the final time that Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff shared the screen. While they were already huge names in horror, the director was an up and comer that had left the editing room named Robert Wise (future Oscar winner for The Sound of Music and West Side Story). After success with Lewton’s The Curse of the Cat People, Wise was brought back for another fright fest. Karloff and Lugosi deal in the dirty business of graverobbing for medical schools. This is a good lead up to Scream Factory’s The Boris Karloff/Bela Lugosi Collection that comes out on April 23 with The Black Cat, The Raven, The Invisible Ray and Black Friday. Here’s the Scream Factory press release on The Body Snatcher with a list of bonus features:
SCREAM FACTORY PRESENTS
THE BODY SNATCHER
DEBUTS ON BLU-RAY™
MARCH 26TH, 2019
“THE BODY SNATCHER is one of Lewton’s greatest works and contains what is arguably Karloff’s finest performance.” – TV GUIDE.com
Los Angeles, CA – A literary classic becomes a horror classic when given the Val Lewton touch. Scream Factory proudly presents The Body Snatcher for the first time on Blu-ray on March 26, 2019, featuring a new 4k scan of the original camera negative and new featurette. Fans can preorder the film now at shoutfactory.com.
The two titans of horror Boris Karloff (Frankenstein) and Bela Lugosi (Dracula) come together in their last on-screen pairing in The Body Snatcher.
Horror icon Boris Karloff plays the title role in the Lewton adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson’s fictional short story The Body Snatcher, directed with subtle calculation by versatile Robert Wise (West Side Story, The Sound of Music). A doctor (Henry Daniell – The Four Skulls of Jonathan Drake) needs cadavers for medical studies and Karloff is willing to provide them one way or another.
Special Features:
· NEW 4K scan of the original camera negative
· NEW You’ll Never Get Rid of Me: Resurrecting THE BODY SNATCHER
· Audio Commentary with director Robert Wise and writer/film historian Steve Haberman
· Documentary – Shadows in the Dark: The Val Lewton Legacy
· Still Galleries – posters, lobby cards, movie stills
