Hard on the heels of Severin’s EUROCRYPT OF CHRISTOPHER LEE which was released in 2022 comes EUROCRYPT 2. This time around there are 7 discs instead of 9 but there is another 100 page booklet from Jonathan Rigby featuring posters and pictures. There are 6 feature films and one bonus movie that has not been taken from original sources and is therefore of lesser visual and sonic quality. They include 2 comedies, (one from France the other from Italy), 2 contemporary crime dramas from the late 1980s, a German Krimi from 1963, and a British tale of possession from 1973. All of the foreign movies feature additional English dubbed soundtracks and all come with much appreciated subtitles. There is even a soundtrack CD from the 1979 French comedy DRACULA & SON.
Let’s deal with the comedies first. The Italian comedy, UNCLE WAS A VAMPIRE (HARD TIMES FOR VAMPIRES is the original Italian title), was made in 1959 right after Lee’s success in Hammer’s DRACULA and he is mostly window dressing. Forced to leave his Carpathian castle which is being demolished for a nuclear power plant, Lee’s count goes to Italy to stay with his only surviving relative, an impoverished nobleman whose former estate is now a luxury hotel. DRACULA & SON, made 20 years later, is Lee’s last vampire film and it’s a fitting farewell. He isn’t actually Dracula but a Romanian count with a young son who is a pitifully inept vampire. They settle in France where he attempts to follow in his father’s footsteps. Both shortened American versions are also available but stick with the originals.
The 2 crime dramas are definitely a mixed bag. 1989’s MURDER STORY was made in The Netherlands and features Lee as an aging author of horror stories who is giving tips to a young, aspiring American writer when they accidentally stumble on a murder and a U.S. government cover-up. It’s engaging and entertaining even though it’s rated PG which killed it at the box office. The conclusion is a real nailbiter. MASK OF MURDER (originally THE FACE) from 1988 is ultra rare and is taken from a VHS copy. It’s set in Canada but was filmed in Sweden. Lee is a police commissioner trying to catch a masked serial killer which he does early in the film but then the murders start reoccurring. This one deserves its R rating and has a nasty though clever twist at the end. Rod Taylor & Valerie Perrine co-star.
That leaves the German Krimi and the British thriller both of which are above average with the latter being genuinely creepy. Krimis were black and white German crime films made in the early 1960s and based on the works of British writer Edgar Wallace. THE SECRET OF THE RED ORCHID concerns American gangsters from Chicago coming to London and creating a crime wave. Lee is an American FBI agent who comes to help Scotland Yard. His German is flawless. Klaus Kinski is American gangster “Pretty Boy Steve”. DARK PLACES, a haunted house tale of possession, has Lee in a supporting role along with Joan Collins as his sister. Robert Hardy (Siegfried in ALL CREATURES GREAT & SMALL) gets the plum role of the man possessed. Leisurely paced but it builds to a powerful climax.
Like its predecessor, THE EUROCRYPT OF CHRISTOPHER LEE – COLLECTION 2 comes in a sturdy cardboard box covered with original artwork. There are 7 discs and a soundtrack CD inside 5 cases. Each disc comes with accompanying commentary (sometimes two) as well as other special features. As mentioned earlier, UNCLE WAS A VAMPIRE and DRACULA AND SON are also available in their shortened American versions but they are badly dubbed and poorly edited and are rather difficult to sit through. Severin deserves praise and credit for issuing these deluxe collector’s box sets not only of the European films of Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing (see CUSHING CURIOSITIES), but of the Folk Horror Collection ALL THE HAUNTS BE OURS as well.
The Capsule Critic 