Die Hexe des Grafen Dracula / Schwarze Messe auf Blutrotem Altar (OT: The Crimson Cult) (Wicked Vision Collector's Series #6) (Blu-ray/DVD Mediabook) [Germany]

[pygospa]

Release : 14.09.2018

Link (Wicked Shop) :  Sold out [there is, however a black amaray release still available]

Price : €29,99

Limited : 555 (Cover A) + 222 (Cover B) + 333 (Cover C)

 

 

The other post that you'll have to thank @Grendel for (see this post) is this movie. As "Collector's Series" #6 this one is on of the earliest releases by Wicked Vision: "The Crimson Cult" from 1968 may seem like a typical Hammer Horror productions - staring Christopher Lee and Boris Karloff makes it seem like it, even more so, but even though it's a British film directed by Vernon Sewell, it was actually produced for AIP (American International Pictures). The story is based - once more - on a short story by H. P. Lovecraft ("The Dreams in the Witch House"), and is a story of witchcraft and occultism. If you read the German title, however, you might start to wonder: "Die Hexe des Grafen Dracula" translates to "The witch of Count Dracula" - Count Dracula? He's actually not in this picture and there is no association to him what so ever? Well, yes, that's true, but German movie labels in the 60s-80s had this horrible idea of "tricking" people into cinemas by adding something to the title that was famous at the time. And as Dracula was one of the most famous titles of that time, a lot of movies got translated wrongly: La maschera del demonio (Black Sunday) --> "Die Stunde, wenn Dracula kommt" (The hour that Dracula arrives), Operazione paura (Kill, Baby, Kill) --> "Die Toten Augen des Dr. Dracula" (The death eyes of doctor Dracula). "Cult of the Crimson Curse" is just another movie that fell victim to this strange German policy. But this is the smallest problem of the movie: due to the English censoring board, this movie got cut, and most of the cinemas and releases used that cut master, which misses 10 seconds of a whipping scene; the original got lost, and so this cut version became the only variant; until a master was found, that is also used for this release, so the release from Wicked is one of the rare uncut versions, world wide. But there's even more - this movie is the last British production with Boris Karloff, who was sick even when he was shooting this movie - a reason why he's in a wheelchair, wearing a concealed oxygen mask. During his 8 days of shooting he got so sick that he was afterwards transported to the emergency room - which is why a lot of people believe that this is the movie that actually got him killed.

 

To counter the strange practice of weird title translations, Wicked released this edition in three cover artworks from which two look nearly identical; however one has an alternative title on the cover "Schwarze Messe auf Blutrotem Altar" (Black mass on a crimson altar), which is much more fitting - both to the movie as well as to the English original title. Cover A show the German original movie poster, cover B shows the rare Spanish movie poster and cover C that is nearly identical to cover A is the french movie poster, and the one with the better German title. This edition is a 3-Disc set, with one blu-ray and two DVDs, filled with a lot of extras:

 

• 24-paged, all German booklet.
• English audio commentary with Barbara Steele and David del Valle (very interesting one!)
• German audio commentary with Daniel Perée (the guy behind Wicked Vision), Ingo Strecker and Jörg Kopetz
• Interview with Christopher Lee
• Audio interview with Christopher Lee
• "Creating the Curse of the Crimson Altar" documentation
• German nostalgic cut (only on the DVD)
• two Super-8 editions of the movie
• alternative introduction
• German cinema introduction
• Trailer, radio advertisment, picture slideshow, etc.

And of course, if you'd preordered and where one of the first 100, you got a limited hand-numbered postcard. Yes, this edition is worth every penny, and if you can still find it somewhere, you'd probably should get it right away!

Here's a trailer:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LOSZOVbnwRA

 

[Grendel]

^^ Great write-ups @pygospa ! Thanks very much! 🤭

 

Maybe have a chat with @extantsrevenge or one of the other Admin and see if we can set up a Chat/Announcement Thread for Wicked Vision?

You have my 100% support!

Perhaps we could even then combine all our separate threads into it?

Just a thought....🤔

Thanks again!

Edited April 7, 2020 by Grendel

[pygospa]

8 minutes ago, Grendel said:

^^ Great write-ups @pygospa ! Thanks very much! 🤭

 

Maybe have a chat with @extantsrevenge or one of the other Admin and see if we can set up a Chat/Announcement Thread for Wicked Vision?

You have my 100% support!

Perhaps we could even then combine all our separate threads into it?

Just a thought....🤔

Thanks again!

 

I love the idea of a separate thread for chatting about those classic horror releases (I then wouldn't limit it to just Wicked Vision releases - there are plenty other good labels, like Anolis, or Indicator, etc. that do great classic horror movie releases). But for the mediabook threads I would think it's better to have separate threads - the idea being that you, me and others can share their pictures or ratings of the movies and the release in that thread, where others could find it if they specifically search for a title, and not having everything going under in a stream of different releases.

For instance, if I find the time, tomorrow, I'd like to add some photos here. The mediabooks are unfortunately sold out, but maybe looking at some pictures will give people joy and maybe if they find an offer online they might consider it (or not) because they know what they'll be buying, and if it's worth their money.

But as you mention @extantsrevenge already: Could you do me a favour? I made a mistake in the title -.- It's not #23, but rather #6 (copy and paste error, I'm really sorry). Can you correct that?

 

Edited April 7, 2020 by pygospa

[Grendel]

@extantsrevenge;

 

^^ See post above please my friend!🙂 (especially last sentence).

[deckard99]

1 hour ago, Grendel said:

@extantsrevenge;

 

^^ See post above please my friend!🙂 (especially last sentence).

 

@pygospa fixed to #6!

[pygospa]

Thank you for fixing it @deckard99. Btw. don't be puzzled by the number on the front cover card: It's a typing error. "Rache der Zombies" also had #5 printed on the cover card, but came before this, and their next release "Der Kuss des Vampirs" was #7. That being said, here are the pictures of my edition - you might have suspected it from my introduction text which wasn't too objective on the topic of title translations: I choose Cover C. As all of the covers sold out rather quickly I hope these pictures give you some joy or maybe help you in deciding weather or not you want to get it second hand and what it might be worth to you. Also as a specialty, I got a postcard set because I was one of the first 100 preorders. That being said, here you go:

 

[Veum]

Spoiler

11 minutes ago, pygospa said:

Thank you for fixing it @deckard99. Btw. don't be puzzled by the number on the front cover card: It's a typing error. "Rache der Zombies" also had #5 printed on the cover card, but came before this, and their next release "Der Kuss des Vampirs" was #7. That being said, here are the pictures of my edition - you might have suspected it from my introduction text which wasn't too objective on the topic of title translations: I choose Cover C. As all of the covers sold out rather quickly I hope these pictures give you some joy or maybe help you in deciding weather or not you want to get it second hand and what it might be worth to you. Also as a specialty, I got a postcard set because I was one of the first 100 preorders. That being said, here you go:

 

 

 

🥤Hi @pygospa,

 

Thank You for this very informative post(s) as I was turned-on to Wicked-shop from @Grendel awhile back & have bought from them recently but have not received them as of yet 😔 

 

Do you know how long they take to ship to USA & is it b/c of the virus 🦠 also?🤔

 

I wish their booklets were also in English, rats 🐀 haha!

[pygospa]

17 hours ago, Veum said:

  Reveal hidden contents

 

 

Do you know how long they take to ship to USA & is it b/c of the virus 🦠 also?🤔

 

I wish their booklets were also in English, rats 🐀 haha!

 

Yeah, I feel you. I am always happy when labels, such as  MantaLab or Plain Archive do English-friendly editions, because otherwhise I'd had to speak Chinese or Korean, and even my Japanese is so bad I wouldn't get very far in reading a booklet. It's a shame that Germany is so stubburn. But Wicked had produced a few English-friendly editions. There are 2-3 dual language Mediabooks and for their Funnyman-Relese they've included the booklet in English translation as PDF onto the disc. Maybe they'll do this more often in the future?

As for your question: If it hasn't been shipped out yet (check the order status on the Wicked Vision website), you can always ask them. Just write them an e-mail, or alternatively if you are on Facebook, ask them there (which is probably the best way to contact them): https://www.facebook.com/wickedvision.media/ But keep in mind that you might have articles that are pre-orders, so maybe they haven't been released yet? And also: He's doing this all alone. My last two orders just got shipped two days ago. During the "processing" status he included a message to the order (see my screenshots). Translated it says: "Hallo, I am trying to send out everything as fast as possible. But currently I am all alone and on my last legs. Please be patient and stay healthy. Best wishes Daniel". So better check your status on their website once more (oh you can do so, by the way, by logging in, then on the top right click your name, go to your account, and there you have an overview of all your orders). And if it's already shipped, then it's the postal services. As I reside in Germany, I have no idea or experience, as of how long it takes to ship to the states. Maybe @Grendel, as your "neighbor" can shed some light? But yeah, there could also be delays due to Corona. I am waiting for a Media Markt package, and also Amazon is delaying all their packages for at least 2 days.

 

I'll keep my fingers crossed for you not having to wait so long and that you receive your package soon and in good condition. Keep us updated!

 

[pygospa]

40 minutes ago, pygospa said:

During the "processing" status he included a message to the order (see my screenshots). Translated it says: "Hallo, I am trying to send out everything as fast as possible. But currently I am all alone and on my last legs. Please be patient and stay healthy. Best wishes Daniel".

 

Oh, sorry, I forgot to add the screenshots. Here you go (my two last orders):

 

[Veum]

2 hours ago, pygospa said:

 

Yeah, I feel you. I am always happy when labels, such as  MantaLab or Plain Archive do English-friendly editions, because otherwhise I'd had to speak Chinese or Korean, and even my Japanese is so bad I wouldn't get very far in reading a booklet. It's a shame that Germany is so stubburn. But Wicked had produced a few English-friendly editions. There are 2-3 dual language Mediabooks and for their Funnyman-Relese they've included the booklet in English translation as PDF onto the disc. Maybe they'll do this more often in the future?

As for your question: If it hasn't been shipped out yet (check the order status on the Wicked Vision website), you can always ask them. Just write them an e-mail, or alternatively if you are on Facebook, ask them there (which is probably the best way to contact them): https://www.facebook.com/wickedvision.media/ But keep in mind that you might have articles that are pre-orders, so maybe they haven't been released yet? And also: He's doing this all alone. My last two orders just got shipped two days ago. During the "processing" status he included a message to the order (see my screenshots). Translated it says: "Hallo, I am trying to send out everything as fast as possible. But currently I am all alone and on my last legs. Please be patient and stay healthy. Best wishes Daniel". So better check your status on their website once more (oh you can do so, by the way, by logging in, then on the top right click your name, go to your account, and there you have an overview of all your orders). And if it's already shipped, then it's the postal services. As I reside in Germany, I have no idea or experience, as of how long it takes to ship to the states. Maybe @Grendel, as your "neighbor" can shed some light? But yeah, there could also be delays due to Corona. I am waiting for a Media Markt package, and also Amazon is delaying all their packages for at least 2 days.

 

I'll keep my fingers crossed for you not having to wait so long and that you receive your package soon and in good condition. Keep us updated!

 

 

🥤morning here @pygospa,

 

TU for your response my friend! I know I have to be more patient w/my overseas purchases, however I just get more squeamish when it takes longer then I expected/wanted LOL 😆 

 

 

have an awesome day my friend, regards your American friend Veum 🤠

 

[Grendel]

First, Thanks so very much @pygospa for the wonderful pics of the Crimson Altar Mediabook and goodies, really great.

Yeah, I might eventually track it down but excited to watch the amaray disc at least, since I've heard they did a wonderful job on the upscale! 🥰

 

Second, Thanks for sharing your info wrt Wicked's handling of things during this chaotic time.

I believe Daniel Peree usually has 3 staff with him to assist, so if he's soloing efforts right now, that can certainly be a frantic scenario.

(i.e. your invoice shows Paid = 17 March, and Shipped = 04 April)

 

During "normal" times, I believe shipping usually took about 2 weeks (from when in stock of course).

Right now, a month?

I dunno, nobody does. I've had orders in with Amz.CA (for in-stock items) since mid-March that have not shipped yet.

 

We'll be leaning on our patience heavily for a while yet I think folks.  🙂

 

Edited April 8, 2020 by Grendel