Satanas - Das Schloss der blutigen Bestie (OT: The Masque of the Red Death) (HansaSound) (Blu-ray/DVD Mediabook) [Germany]

[pygospa]

Release: 06.12.2019

Link (Amazon.de): https://www.amazon.de/gp/product/B07ZWBH92L

Price: 17,98€

Limited: ?

 

 

End of last year HansaSound published this 1964 Roger Corman classic "The Masque of the Red Death", that has a rather strange German title: "Santanas - Castle of the bloody beast". I've never heard of this label before, so I searched for them, but couldn't find out too much; they have 37 movie releases, most of them Amarays (I counted 11 Mediabook releases), all of them classic titles, but without thematically any focus (Sayonara, The Vampire Lovers, The Wonderful Country, Pocketful of Miracles, etc.). According to their website they are a Hamburg based company of three people, that concentrates on buying licenses for music, movies and software and produces discs, but also does Rackjobbing, and is also responsible (or owns?) the Poco Möbelmarkt, which is a German furniture discount chain that sells really cheap quality furniture, and therefore has a bad reputation. Rather odd mixture. A little further digging and I found out, that they bought up Caroland which is a 1970s music company that filed bankruptcy in 2011. HansaSound was founded buying this companies assets.

 

Like with most of their titles, this one is a re-release, of a title that was previously licensed to another label - apparently that's something this company does (maybe because the licenses become cheaper this way?); the first edition was brought out by Koch Media in an 2-disc amaray edition in 2013 and is out of print and sold out. HansaSound is the first to bring it in a Mediabook, and optically this is rather good. It's not the best quality, it's a bit thin, and a bit shorter than usual Mediabooks, paper quality is also quite cheap (rather thin), but it comes with 24 pages of text, an unusual artwork on the Cover and BD and DVD included. If you look a bit closer though, you might get a bit disappointed: From these 24 pages, there are only four images (not counting the cover pages), rest ist plain text in white font on black pages with absolutely no design. Even worse: Only 7 pages are written for this mediabook itself (by Nando Rohner). The text of the remaining 11 pages is copied 1-to-1 from Wikipedia! That's rather dull? Especially considering a 3-page listing of the filmography of Vincent Price. All imagery is from the film itself, all of the promotional picture set from Koch Media.

 

Watching the disk, we get pretty beautiful and clear image, which is nice - there are some parts that are blurry, but I guess that's due to the age of this material. As this is a re-release it is the same master that Koch used (and I guess they licensed it form somewhere else), I did some screenshots, where you can see that for most parts it is a bit grainy but rather sharp, showing all details (e.g. look at the heads and you can make out every single hair). That's pretty decent. What's rather frustrating is the rest of it: On the disc you'll find English and German audio (PCM 2.0) as well as an image gallery. This image gallery to be exact: https://www.moviepilot.de/movies/satanas-das-schlo-der-blutigen-bestie/bilder/307408. That's the Koch Media promotional pictures set. And that's it. No further extras. Why this is especially frustrating? Look what Koch had to offer when they released this (using the same Master):

 

• TV-Special: "An Evening of Edgar Allan Poe" (55 Min)
• "Interview with director Roger Corman" (19 Min)
• "Interview with dubbing director Arne Elsholtzs" (19 Min)
• Cut scenes (1 Min)
• Super 8 version (18 Min)
• Picture Gallery with rare advertisement material and pictures from Set of the Poe TV-Special
• Original Comic from the film as ROM part on the Disc.

So the Amaray, that probably was much cheaper, has so much more to offer than this set. That's a shame. Worst of all: Even the English and German subtitles that the original had, are missing!

To sum up, I'd say this is a rather loveless release, that was done with the minimum effort. On the outside it looks all good, but digging into it, you'll see that this is just make-believe. Given the price of nearly 20€, I cannot recommend this edition, if you care about more than just the MB packaging. I'd probably only get this, if it was in a sale below 10€. You're better off getting an Amaray version and printing out the Wikipedia text in booklet size so you can fit it into that Amary --> Much better version.

 

Edited June 4, 2020 by pygospa

[Veum]

🥤Hi @pygospa,

 

I have The Masque of the Red Death in this fantastic VP collection!😊

 

The Vincent Price Collection Blu-ray

The Fall of the House of Usher a.k.a House of Usher / The Pit and the Pendulum / The Haunted Palace / The Masque of the Red Death / Witchfinder General / The Abominable Dr. PhibesShout Factory | 1960-1971 | 6 Movies | 521 min |

 

   $486.70  Used - Very Good

 

I also own these VP collections!!😘

 

The Vincent Price Collection II Blu-ray

The Last Man on Earth / The Comedy of Terrors / Dr. Phibes Rises Again / The Tomb of Ligeia / The Raven / Return of the Fly / The House on Haunted HillShout Factory | 1959-1972 | 7 Movies | 588 min |

 

    $63.98 + $3.99 shipping Used - Very Good

 

The Vincent Price Collection III Blu-ray

Master of the World / Tower of London / Diary of a Madman / Cry of the Banshee / An Evening of Edgar Allan PoeShout Factory | 1961-1970 | 5 Movies | 420 min |

 

    $105.99+ $3.99 shipping  Used - Good

 

 

 

 

 

[Grendel]

Hi @pygospa , @Veum and others; 🙂

 

Thanks for taking one for the team pygospa !

I'm saddened to hear the experience was not a happy one.

Indeed, the Blu-ray offers for Masque are few, far between and leave much to be desired.

Those are very lovely Shout! sets you purchased @Veum. 🙂

I've been hoping they would re-print set 1. It's been 5 years, I don't know what the delay is?

 

I do appreciate all the info you provided pygospa, a very thorough examination and revelation.

At the least, the film is in watchable quality, I do hope you enjoy it.

Likewise, I do hope you have fun with The Haunted Palace! 🙂

[pygospa]

1 hour ago, Veum said:

🥤Hi @pygospa,

 

I have The Masque of the Red Death in this fantastic VP collection!😊

 

The Vincent Price Collection Blu-ray

The Fall of the House of Usher a.k.a House of Usher / The Pit and the Pendulum / The Haunted Palace / The Masque of the Red Death / Witchfinder General / The Abominable Dr. PhibesShout Factory | 1960-1971 | 6 Movies | 521 min |

 

   $486.70  Used - Very Good

 

I also own these VP collections!!😘

 

The Vincent Price Collection II Blu-ray

The Last Man on Earth / The Comedy of Terrors / Dr. Phibes Rises Again / The Tomb of Ligeia / The Raven / Return of the Fly / The House on Haunted HillShout Factory | 1959-1972 | 7 Movies | 588 min |

 

    $63.98 + $3.99 shipping Used - Very Good

 

The Vincent Price Collection III Blu-ray

Master of the World / Tower of London / Diary of a Madman / Cry of the Banshee / An Evening of Edgar Allan PoeShout Factory | 1961-1970 | 5 Movies | 420 min |

 

    $105.99+ $3.99 shipping  Used - Good

 

 

 

 

 

 

Loveley, however the prices are a bit too steep for my taste :D . I guess, they are currently out of print? And unfortunately Region A locked, as all Shoutfactory releses are? I'll guess I'll be on the lookout for something from Criterion (UK), Arrow, Eureka! or Indicator. But having 18 movies, and probably with tons of bonus material (?) is still far better than this mediabook, which has nothing more to offer than it's package.

 

47 minutes ago, Grendel said:

Hi @pygospa , @Veum and others; 🙂

 

Thanks for taking one for the team pygospa !

I'm saddened to hear the experience was not a happy one.

Indeed, the Blu-ray offers for Masque are few, far between and leave much to be desired.

Those are very lovely Shout! sets you purchased @Veum. 🙂

I've been hoping they would re-print set 1. It's been 5 years, I don't know what the delay is?

 

I do appreciate all the info you provided pygospa, a very thorough examination and revelation.

At the least, the film is in watchable quality, I do hope you enjoy it.

Likewise, I do hope you have fun with The Haunted Palace! 🙂

Sure thing. I love Mediabooks and therefore would have gotten this anyways. However now I am thinking if I should just return them... I'll probably keep them, for now. But I'll probably be on the lookout for a better edition from one of the above mentioned. I'm currently going through my collection alphabetically, so it'll be a while till I get to these titles. But I am looking forward to it. I saw a few extracts and the trailers, and they look like my cup of tea :)

Btw. totally forgot to attach a trailer, so here you go :D (better late then never, no?)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vCUtm7mCF4I