As Italy made Giallo and America had Hitchcock, West Germany had Krimi. Freely adapted from works by the British crime writer Edgar Wallace and his son Bryan Edgar Wallace, they combined the traditional murder mystery with horror. Masked and gloved killers stalked their victims like ghosts in the fog of London, starting with Face of the Frog and The Crimson Circle, before producer Artur Brauner launched the CCC Film series of Krimi.

Now, Eureak! has a box set with six examples:

The Curse of the Yellow Snake: A mysterious cult wishes to lay its hands on an ancient artefact that has been brought to London from Hong Kong.

The Strangler of Blackmoor Castle: A masked murderer stalk the grounds of a vast British estate – one who brands his victims’ foreheads with the letter M.

The Mad Executioners: Who should we be more afraid of? The killer or the gang of hooded vigilantes?

The Phantom of Soho: A sleazy nightclub is surrounded by death!

The Monster of London City: Is Jack the Ripper back in London?

The Racetrack Murders (AKA The Seventh Victim): Everyone who knows the racehorse Satan seems to die!

Krimi and Giallo both mean mystery novels to the respective readers of Germany and Italy. While the films they inspired share similarities, they each have their own unique feel. It’s also an ever-changing-back-and-forth trade between these genres, as they increase in bloodshed and masked killer excess as they go on — and I mean that in all the best of ways.

This set is a perfect companion to Eureka!’s Mabuse Lives! Dr. Mabuse At CCC: 1960-1964 set. Each of these releases is nearly a film education in a box, as Tim Lucas, Kim Newman and others open up your mind to blind spots of film that you may have never dared explore. This is beyond a recommendation.

This limited edition of 2000 copies comes inside a hardbound slipcase featuring new artwork by Poochamin with a 60-page collector’s book featuring a new introduction to the Wallace krimi cycle by film writer Howard Hughes, a new essay on Edgar Wallace and Bryan Edgar Wallace by crime fiction expert Barry Forshaw and new notes on each film by Holger. All five films presented in 1080p HD from 2K restorations of the original film elements undertaken by CCC Film.

Extras include new introductions to each film by genre film expert and Video Watchdog founder Tim Lucas; audio commentaries The Curse of the Yellow Snake and The Phantom of Soho by Kim Newman and Barry Forshaw; commentaries on The Strangler of Blackmoor Castle, The Mad Executioners and The Racetrack Murders by Kevin Lyons and Jonathan Rigby and commentary on The Monster of London City by Kim Newman and Stephen Jones. Plus, there’s a new interview with Alice Brauner, producer and managing director of CCC Film and daughter of Artur Brauner and a video essay by Alexandra Heller-Nicholas exploring the influence of the Wallace krimi on the Italian Giallo and American slasher film.

You can get this set from MVD.