There’s nothing more frightening to a film buff than watching classic movies decay with the passage of time.

Watch an older movie on a traditional broadcast network and you’ll see what we mean. The images grow weaker, the black and white film looks washed out.

So kudos to Universal Home Video for being so diligent in restoring great older movies to their original glory.

Universal Classic Monsters: The Essential Collection,” available today on Blu-ray, packages eight vintage horror movies restored and repackaged for a new generation of horror fans. The set includes “Dracula,” “The Mummy,” “The Invisible Man,” “The Bride of Frankenstein,” “The Wolf Man,” “Phantom of the Opera” and “Creature from the Black Lagoon.”

Here’s a sample of how the newly restored versions stack up to what we’ve been seeing on small screens for years, if not decades.