EMS (the company that release the Mario Bava films in germany) is also releasing DVD's of Curse of the Crimson Altar and Blood of the Vampire in the next couple of months. Do any Morbiuns have any advanced word on the specs of these - and especially whether they are likely to be uncut prints (exisiting UK DVD's of both are cut as is the US DVD of Blood of the Vampire)?

thanks

Cut, and ridiculously zoomboxed.

A source close to EMS claims in a German forum that BLOOD OF THE VAMPIRE will be uncut. No further info on format and such.

The French tape of BLOOD OF THE VAMPIRE has sold for high prices on eBay. Does anyone know if its one of the British films with continental versions like FLESH AND THE FIENDS and THE HELLFIRE CLUB?

Yeah it is. HERE is a discussion of BLOOD OF THE VAMPIRE which talks about the continental version, including screen caps on the second page of the thread.

I think EMS is also supposed to release RED RINGS OF FEAR with English audio (and anamorphic unlike the uncut Spanish disc).

The German disc will be just as much zoomboxed.

Why so?

Don't know. I asked on the German forum I mentioned above and the user who is somehow involved in producing this DVD only tried to defend the framing of the Dark Sky disc. That led me to believe that theirs will be the same. He says compositions look better in the cropped version which "gets rid of a lot of dead space".

To my knowledge Red Rings of fear should be released by NEW Entertainment and not by EMS in the near future.

Of course it's meant to be matted to eliminate the 'dead space', but cropping on all four sides is ridiculous. Did you show him those frame grabs I linked to?

Yes, I did. He seemed a bit upset about it. Like I was trying to prevent people from buying it. After all, in his opinion, it looks much better the Dark Sky way.

Oof.

The French VHS has the following extra footage compared to the Dark Skies DVD:

(a) 30m

The pan across the laborotory bits n'pieces is slightly longer but still incomplete due to what seems to be print damage.

(B) 36m-38m

There is an additional sequence (which should appear immediately before the scene in which the hero tries to go through the door in the lab and is confronted by Karl) in which Karl is shown sniffing over various women chained to a wall in the dungeon. He takes one down from the wall (this is the woman previously seen being chained up earlier) ties her down to an operating table and then Callistratus then drains blood from her. This lasts 1m 45s.

© At the end

The close-up of Karl falling on the lever is extended by about 3s so that you see blood dribbling out of his mouth.


Oddly, the scene in which Callistratus drains blood out of the guy with the needle at about 31m (after the pan described above) is censored in the French VHS with an abrupt fade to black before you see the blood dripping into the flask.

Whoops. I've seen the film in non-anamorphic scope and it makes the film look far better than the cropped Wizard tape though Negrin and his cinematographer (the Spanish version credits Eduardo Noe as d.p. and Carlo Carlini as segundo operador though that may be a quota thing since Noe and Carlini share credit on the English credits and Noe was still credited as segundo operador as late as THE CRAVING) lack the visual imagination of Dallamano and Massacessi. I finally recognized Silvia Aguilar as one of the main schoolgirls.

The German release should be interesting.

For those of you interested in Blood of the Vampire the UK DVD release, by DD Video, is a different edit to the US Dark Sky release and contains about 30s from the so-called "Continental" sequence that is missing from the US release. The laboratory pan shot is also different. However, the scene in which Donald Wolfitt sticks a needle in a guy's neck (about 30m in) is censored as per the French VHS whereas the US print has this uncut.