Overview: For those craving a taste of Euro-Kinski, two of Klaus Kinski’s European features are now available in one creepy package!~

Presented for the first time in Blu-ray, Creature with the Blue Hand (1967) is a mystery-thriller about a series of grisly murders. It’s one of several German films based on the novels of Edgar Wallace, many adaptations of which starred Kinski. This time he plays an escaped mental patient who might be the killer.

Meanwhile, Web of the Spider (1971) is a classic haunted house tale from Italian maestro, Antonio Margheriti, with Kinski as none other than Edgar Allan Poe! It’s a diabolical double dose from one of cinema’s most controversial and unique figures!

Blu-ray Verdict: First up is Creature with the Blue Hand (1967), which turns out to be a rather convoluted murder-whodunit, set in grim decors like spooky insane asylums and gothic family mansions full of secret passageways (but all that works beautifully, still ever today).

Kinski plays a double role, identical twin brothers Dave and Richard Emerson, of which Dave is falsely accused of murder and submitted to an asylum. Someone unknown helps him escape, and simultaneously more members from the noble Emerson clan are brutally murdered by a killer who uses a blue gauntlet with sharp spikes.

For once, Kinski doesn’t portray the most diabolical character of the bunch. That honor goes to Carl Lange, who plays the sadist head warden of the asylum. He wears a monocle and keeps poisonous snakes in a safe in his office! Siegfried Schürenberg, in his familiar role as Sir John of Scotland Yard, ensures the obligatory comic-relief.

Almost the entire film is bound to the family estate, a setting which allows for plenty of surreal images and vivid colors and soft photography and cracks of lightning in the night, and a few well done stalking scenes, but also limits the film, and makes it feel like a photographed stage play (which I actually quite liked at times).

Then comes Web of the Spider (1971), a remake of Castle of Blood (which I have not seen yet), but what I can say from the off is that this version is beautifully photographed and dutifully atmospheric.

However, I am reliably informed that all the plot elements are virtually identical within the two versions, right down to the lesbian love scene, resulting in three corpses lying on the floor in roughly two minutes of lustful activity!

My goodness, that was definitely daring in 1964, but here is treated in such timid, predictable fashion that it sadly loses all the bite of how they became corpses. The guest-filled ball is the one sequence that adds more running time here, along with Elisabeth juggling multiple affairs while her husband is away in America, and both male and female lovers equally jealous to the point of murder, of course.

That all said, Franciosa’s convincing, enjoyable performance stays just the right side of over the top with the rest of the French, Italian, and German cast (unknowns to me) being good (mind you, the two female leads, Michele Mercier and Karin Field, are simply gorgeous).

And there’s a framing sequence, featuring Klaus Kinski as Edgar Allan Poe! The story’s a good one, even if it is a cut-for-cut version of the original, but it is most definitely worth checking out, especially if you are a fan of atmospheric 1970’s period Eurohorror with a touch of the erotica.

Bonus Features:
Creature with the Blue Hand full length commentary track
Web of the Spider full length commentary track
Second feature, The Bloody Dead (1987), from Independent International Pictures with added scenes for the home video release
Essays by Christopher Stewardson and Nick Clark
All new documentary on Edgar Wallace
Archival commentary by Samuel M. Sherman
Original theatrical trailer from 35mm for Creature with the Blue Hand
Reimagined trailer for Web of the Spider using restored elements