BY NOW, most of the classic horror films from the major Hollywood studios’ archives have seen the light of day on one home video format or another.

Some have been issued and reissued with a little too much zeal, like the Universal warhorses Dracula and Frankenstein, which seem to get trotted out again every few years with new bells and whistles, and currently await yet another revival in the shiny new Blu-Ray high definition format.

But some new multi-film collections released in time for this Halloween prove there are still dusty corners of the film vault worth exploring. Fox Horror Classics Vol. 2 (20th Century Fox) follows last year’s set, which included the overdue releases of Laird Cregar thrillers Hangover Square and the Lodger (plus the less-esteemed Undying Monster), while Sony’s release of Hammer Films: Icons of Horror (Columbia Pictures) continues its welcome exploration of titles it controls made by England terror masters Hammer Films.

Of the three films in the Fox set, only the 1942 entry Dr. Renault’s Secret can be said to truly fit the horror genre, with a story swiped from Phantom of the Opera author Gaston Leroux’s novel Balaoo. Directed by Harry Lachman, a former painter who went back to his easel after making it, the film features one of movies’ favourite mad scientists, George Zucco as the titular physician.

Visiting Renault’s French estate to marry his niece, American doctor Larry Forbes (John Shepperd) takes note of the peculiarly simian manservant Noel (veteran character actor J. Carrol Naish, in striking makeup). It doesn’t take much to figure out that there’s more to Noel than meets the eye — especially if you’re familiar with H.G. Wells’ Island of Dr. Moreau or the film it inspired, Island of Lost Souls (sadly, not on DVD) — and this Darwinian thriller moves to a swift climax as Naish reverts back to his primitive origins.

Like Dr. Renault’s Secret, the 1932 adventure Chandu the Magician has a story that feels like it came from a Poverty Row producer, but with impressive big studio production values. Based on a popular radio series, this jaw-dropping title packs so much plot into 72 minutes it’ll make your head spin, as Hindu-trained mystic Chandu (mustachioed matinée idol Edmund Lowe) pursues the evil Roxor (Bela Lugosi, still at the peak of his post-Dracula powers) into the heart of an Egyptian temple to prevent him from using a city-destroying death ray.

An obvious influence on the Indiana Jones series, Chandu the Magician is loaded with hair-raising spectacle, early ’30s pre-code spice and dynamic filmmaking, plus Lugosi at his villainous best.

The real prize in this set is the gothic melodrama Dragonwyck, from All About Eve writer/director Joseph L. Mankiewicz. Previously unavailable on home video in North America, it stars a beautiful Gene Tierney as a Christian farm girl who attracts the attention of her noble, but depraved, distant cousin Nicholas Van Ryn, played to menacing perfection by Vincent Price.

A rich and haunting film, with a bracing adult script by Mankiewicz, the title is augmented by an audio commentary, a featurette, isolated Alfred Newman score and two radio dramatizations of the original Anya Seton story.

Hammer Films: Icons of Horror is more of a mixed bag, but each of its four films is enjoyable to some degree, thanks to the studio’s ability to recruit memorable actors and make films that always look good despite their slim budgets.

Half the films are true winners: The Two Faces of Dr. Jekyll (released Stateside as House of Fright) and Scream of Fear. The former is a saucy take on the Robert Louis Stevenson tale that bows on DVD with all the material that made it controversial in 1960 safely intact. Paul Massie is impressive as a repressed Jekyll whose released id Hyde is both handsome and insanely evil, while Hammer stalwart Christopher Lee has a nice turn as a shameless cad carrying on with Mrs. Jekyll (a very ripe Dawn Addams).

Lee also appears in a bit part in Scream of Fear, a post-Psycho shocker about a fragile paraplegic played by Susan Strasberg who is being driven insane by a malevolent stepmother. Despite its age, the 1961 film’s surprises still work, and Strasberg is sympathetic in a difficult role.

On the flipside, there’s The Gorgon, about the spirit of Medusa’s sister Megaera, who curses a German village and turns men to stone with her gaze. Lee and fellow Hammer icon Peter Cushing do what they can to give spark to the story, but there isn’t enough of the monster to keep us intrigued and the snake-headed Gorgon remains unimpressive when we finally do see it in closeup.

The Curse of the Mummy’s Tomb doesn’t have any stars to speak of, and it has the usual problems of mummy pictures with a long slow buildup to the eventual rampage of the walking bandage. But both Curse and The Gorgon will be welcome additions to the DVD libraries of Hammer fans, with glowing widescreen transfers that preserve the studio’s vivid photography and artful production design.