Comparison between the US-DVDs released by MV and BCI.

In José Ramón Larraz' "Los Ritos sexuales del diablo" a woman and her husband want to investigate her brother's mysterious death and she falls into the hands of a bunch of Satanists. The mixture of a lot of soft-core sex and the Satan-topic works astonishingly well. Larraz creates atmosphere and sleaze even though he did not show himself to happy with his work in interviews that he gave afterwards. Helga Liné embodies her role as wicked sister in law and looks pretty good for her age.

For a long time there were only two (more popular) releases of Black Candles. First of all there is the cut UK Tape released by Redemption. According to bbfc.co.uk 5 sec. have been cut and it has a running time of 80:49 min. The film has been aired on British TV, as well, but with noticeably more cuts. The complete scene with the goat was missing. The second release was the DVD-R released by MV. Probably a copy from a US-Tape and (almost) complete. All the delicate scenes were in it. In 2007 BCI released it as part of their Grindhouse series, as a Double Feature with "The Evil Eye". Finally in the correct aspect ratio (all the releases before had been in 1.33:1) and complete. When compared to the release by MV there are two small differences, the footage tears have only been listed for the sake of completeness. The negative thing about the BCI DVD is its pale image. The MV is clearly better in that aspect. Another problem is a heavy mistake after approximately 22 minutes. The footage seems to get off the role. After a short time everything goes back to normal, but BCI can be blamed for being a little sloppy when scanning the footage.

Image comparison:

BCI: 1.77:1

MV: 1.33:1

Running times:

BCI: 81:53 min.
MV: 83:58 min. (After the text "The End" the music continues for another 2:22 min..)

[00:02:34][00:02:21]

The MV DVD has another credit sequence so a few scenes are missing. The missing scenes are exactly those in which the BCI DVD shows the credits. So the credits have probably been on the master. The MV DVD pulled a few tricks. So it only shows the scenes that do not contain any credits and it freezes or slows down some of them so this does not result in a time difference.

BCI: 1:06 min.
MV: 1:07 min.


[00:15:33][00:15:21]

The sex scene between Carol and her brother is a little longer.

7 sec.


[00:18:19][00:17:59]

Footage tear: The house can be seen a bit longer.

2 sec.


[00:22:00][00:21:38]

Footage tear: Carol can be seen a bit longer.

2 sec.


[00:29:30][00:29:06]

Footage tear: The two girls can be seen a bit longer.

2 sec.