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| Images courtesy of Eureka Entertainment |
Following the release of Eureka Entertainment’s
comprehensive Mabuse Lives! six-film boxed set of West German krimis (German
crime thriller) from producer Artur Brauner for the CCC Filmkunst Company which
renewed interest in the krimi or in general, the boutique label unveiled an
equally large further dabbling in the Edgar Wallace infused thriller with Terror
in the Fog: The Wallace Krimi at CCC.
Also a six-film set of shadowy crime thrillers based on the works of
Edgar and his son Bryan Wallace, the Wallace Krimi films represented a
kind of proto-giallo movement in 1960s West German cinema replete with its own
subset of recurring leitmotifs and tropes such as masked hooded or gloved
figures chasing victims down dark alleyways choked with fog. Designed as an equally strong follow-up to Mabuse
Lives! (though I’m inclined to call Terror in the Fog the superior release),
this new limited edition boxed set features five of the films in 2K
restorations from CCC Film with one additional feature The Phantom of Soho
presented in standard definition. For
the sake of completion, we’ll be covering all six films included here.
The first in the lineup is recurring krimi and The Phantom
of Soho director Franz Gottlieb’s adaptation of Edgar Wallace’s 1926 novel The
Yellow Snake, retitled The Curse of the Yellow Snake. In it, a mercurial Chinese cult housed in
London is on the hunt for a missing ancient artifact in the form of a snake
that was smuggled out of Hong Kong. With
the Scotland Yard police team on the trail of the cult trying to impede their
quest for world domination, it becomes a pulpy race against time while trying
to keep the dreaded artifact away from the wrong hands. Featuring recurring krimi stalwart Werner
Peters, proto-Bond villain Pinkas Braun as Fing-Su (albeit in yellow face with
his eyelines taped back to look Asian) and aided by a central performance by
Joachim Fuchsberger as the film’s hero, the film kicks off the Wallace krimi
set with a bang with imagery predating the cultish imagery of some of the Indiana
Jones films. Shot in black-and-white
1.66:1 by The Monster of London City cinematographer Siegfried Hold and
aided by a jazzy score by recurring krimi composer Raimund Rosenberger, it sets
the gothic near-slasher horror stage these films will play out on beautifully.
Next up is Face of the Frog director Harald Reinl’s
spooky and surprisingly gory The Strangler of Blackmoor Castle which
sees a masked and gloved murderer skulking about the grounds of an English
estate. Picking off people one by one
via decapitation with the carving out of the letter M on their foreheads (an
homage to Fritz Lang’s crime epic of the same name?), the film features a shadowy
mixture of mysterious characters including a possibly deranged butler played
with gusto by Dieter Eppler, a doctor who might know more than he’s telling and
an heir who finds himself under suspicion despite his own innocence. With moody, spooky 1.66:1 cinematography by The
Invisible Dr. Mabuse cameraman Ernst W. Kalinke and an especially eerie,
clucking electronic score by The Birds sound designer Oskar Sala, The
Strangler of Blackmoor Castle whips up quite an uneasy atmosphere with
death lurking around fog banks and deep shadows. The vibe is one of not only gialli, but of
the eventually ultraviolent slasher film.
Third in the set is The Monster of London City director
Edwin Zbonek’s The Mad Executioners which opens up the screen to scope
2.35:1 thanks to recurring krimi cameraman Richard Angst of The Racetrack
Murders. In this one, a cult of shadowy
hooded vigilante justice seekers are on the hunt for a serial killer
while also picking off figures of social standing they deem to be wrongdoers. Meanwhile the Scotland Yard force frowns on
their antics and tries to put an end to their vigilantism and the serial killer’s
headless victims continue to pile up, prompting the inspector’s brave wife to
try and use herself to bait the killer out.
Something of a continuation of the cult themes explored in The Curse
of the Yellow Snake replete with a secret mad scientist laboratory and
proto-Bond villainy, The Mad Executioners brings Yellow Snake composer
back into the limelight with his jazzy score which spices up the already
atmospheric proceedings. Though silly
occasionally, The Monster of London City is otherwise another solid
krimi full of the now recognizable tropes albeit in panoramic widescreen this
time around.
Fourth (technically a bonus feature) in the series The
Phantom of Soho, another scope 2.35:1 widescreen effort by The Curse of
the Yellow Snake director Franz Gottlieb, is another mixture of shadowy masked
figures murdering people in the night though this one is a bit sexier than some
of the others that came before. With a Soho
nightclub featuring a scantily clad woman having knives thrown at her on a
spinning apparatus while a silver gloved and death skull masked figure murders
victims using those same throwing knives, the film brings back Dieter Borsche
and krimi stalwart Werner Peters while ushering the unlikely screen talents of
Elisabeth Flickenschildt. A bit sleazier
than some of the ones that came before, the film sports lovely scope
photography by The Monster of London City cameraman Richard Angst and an
equally jazzy score by that same film’s composer, again by Martin Böttcher who
would score the latter film as well.
Despite the standard-definition presentation, The Phantom of Soho is
every bit as vital of a krimi as the other more officially presented offerings
in the set.
Fifth in the series is Edwin Zbonek’s superb and wildly meta-Jack
the Ripper film The Monster of London City which sees art imitating
life as stage theater actor Richard Sand (Hansjörg Felmy) playing the titular
character on stage finds himself framed for murder as actors and crew members
affiliated with the show start dying in ways similar to that of the stage
play. With Richard Sand posited as the
prime suspect with a steadfast Scotland Yard Inspector Dorne (Hans Nielsen) on
his tail, threats of closing the play down followed by possible jailtime start
cropping up. Desperate to clear his
name, Sand launches into his own investigation as the body count rises and fear
grips the streets of London. Featuring
scope cinematography by The Curse of the Yellow Snake cameraman Siegfried
Hold and another jazzy score by Martin Böttcher, part of the film’s appeal is
the notion that the masked makeup covered Hansjörg Felmy might actually be the
killer hiding out in the open. While we’re
with the character the whole time, the film doesn’t really let us know for sure
while we’re watching it.
In a marked departure from the prior krimi in the set is the
sixth film The Seventh Victim or as it is titled here The Racetrack
Murders, our film opens on a curiously lit broad daylight murder of a horse
racer on the track. Ordinarily we see
the shadowy underlit creepy faces of the killers peeking out faintly from the
darkness but here they’re lit the same way out in the open and it is a most
jarring visual effect. Bringing Franz
Gottlieb back in his third film in the set with the only one shot in 1.33:1
Academy ratio by Richard Angst and another jazzy score by Raimund Rosenberger
(both of their thirds in the set), Hansjörg Felmy from The Monster of London
City is back as well as Werner Peters, Dieter Borsche and Hans Nielsen almost
like a Murderer’s Row of krimi stars. Of
the krimi included in the set, while featuring a familiar subset of players and
crew members, it is clearly plainly the most overtly different of the others
far less shadowy and atmospheric than what preceded it. Nevertheless, the recurring proto-spy and
gialli/slasher thriller elements still come up and add to the overall
excitement of the piece.
With the films out of the way, now onto the extensive
comprehensive extras included in the box limited to 2,000 copies. Featuring a 60-page booklet featuring essays
on the Wallace krimi cycle by Howard Hughes, an essay by crime fiction expert
Barry Forshaw and notes on each film by Krimi! Magazine editor Holger
Haase and housed in a hardbound box with reversible sleeve art on the cases, the
packaging and sleeve design is immaculately detailed. For posterity all of the films in the set
include English dubs and selectable introductions by Video Watchdog founder Tim
Lucas preceding each film. In addition
to numerous audio commentaries on several of the films by Kim Newman, Barry
Forshaw and many others, the set also includes a newly conducted interview with
daughter Alice Brauner who is now the managing director of her father’s company
CCC Film. For fans of the Italian giallo
and the American slasher, there is a visual essay on Passing the Blade regarding
the overarching influence of krimi on both respective subgenres. Finally, there’s an in-depth 84 minute video
discussion between Tim Lucas and Stephen Bissette on the history of the krimi.
A strong contender for blu-ray boxed set of the year 2025
and a clearly vitally important component of what would or wouldn’t evolve into
the gialli slasher thriller film, Terror in the Fog: The Wallace Krimi at
CCC while still only a fraction of the sheer magnitude of output coming out
of CCC Film at the time nevertheless represents some of the best films the
krimi subgenre has to offer. Both an
analogue to Eureka’s Mabuse Lives! box and just a highly entertaining
collection of crime thrillers in it’s own right, Terror in the Fog is a
wonderful introduction to the atmospheric foggy netherworld of the krimi
thriller. Waiting anxiously to be
discovered for the first time by genre fans as well as world cinema fans, these
six films in a lovely boxed set are indelible if not delightful iterations of
the krimi subgenre. An important history
lesson for anyone interested in the horror thriller film’s origin story.
--Andrew Kotwicki
