Der unheimliche Mönch

Gwendolin (Karin Dor) inherited a fortune from her grandfather, but doesn't know it yet. Her greedy relatives try to get her out of the way, but that's not as easy as it seems, when a hooded monk sneaks through the night and kills people with his whip. Is it a ghost, a psychopathic killer, or a man with a secret plan? Harald Leipnitz plays the inspector investigating on this case, whilst one of the most famous inspectors of German TV history, Siegfried Lowitz, plays the villain this time. The 20th movie of the Edgar Wallace series (which began only 6 years earlier with "Der Frosch mit der Maske") was the last one in black & white. Somehow the later color movies didn't have the same atmosphere anymore and ran out of ideas. "Der unheimliche Mönch", however, is spooky, foggy fun and absolutely worthy to close this chapter of the classic series.

I'm not really much of an expert on the German sub-genre known as the Krimi. It seemed to be the predominant European mystery-thriller genre before the Italian giallo went into hyper-drive at the dawn of the 70's. The Krimi was a lot less menacing and flamboyant than their Italian counterparts but they shared a focus on cinematic style. Like many, The Sinister Monk was based on a story by the English writer Edgar Wallace. The story can be summarised as thus - a girl inherits a fortune from her grandfather but doesn't get to know about it as her greedy, scheming relatives steal the will; she is subsequently invited to stay at their boarding school where they intend to deal with her but almost immediately a series of strange murders are committed by a mysterious monk character.

So we have a girls boarding school, a family of unpleasant characters fighting over an inheritance, a killer monk whose weapon of choice is a whip which he skilfully strangles victims with, a schoolgirl who carries a water-pistol loaded with sulphuric acid, odd side characters such as a weird death mask making artist who lives in one of the high towers of the school and an ominous new French teacher. Add to this a sub-plot concerning girls from the school seemingly going missing on a regular basis and you have quite a lot of interesting ingredients to make this one up. To make matters even better there is an over-the-top, flamboyant soundtrack that gives off a cool 60's vibe. While the main girl is played by the rather gorgeous Karin Dor who would star later in Alfred Hitchcock's Topaz and the eccentric artist is played by Rudolf Schündler who would turn up several years later as a strange professor of witch-craft in Dario Argento's Suspiria. Despite being a German film, this one is set in and around London. But this was a common trait of the Krimi, used to help sell them overseas. Overall, it's a very good film for those wishing to experience a Krimi for the first time. It's a lot of fun.

I've only just really started getting into the Krimi genre and most of the ones I have seen so far have been the later entries which were in colour. As such, one of the things I like most about this type of film is the wacky colour schemes; yet although The Sinister Monk is shot in black and white and thus doesn't feature one, it's still a very nice film to look at and also provides an interesting and entertaining mystery - ensuring that The Sinister Monk is one of the very best Krimi flicks that I've seen so far! The plot is, as usual, based on a novel by British crime writer Edgar Wallace and this time focuses on a family in turmoil over the distribution of a family will. It turns out that the late patriarch of the family intended to leave all of his wealth to his favourite granddaughter Gwendolyn; a fact that doesn't exactly go down well with the rest of the scheming family. Naturally, they plot to ensure that the granddaughter doesn't get what's coming to her; but things are complicated when a monk with a whip shows up and starts picking people off!

The plot is not exactly original and has literally been seen a hundred times before in mystery thrillers - but the film is made good by Edgar Wallace's strange approach and we get a plot peppered with things such as the whip wielding monk (evidently a Wallace favourite), a wall full of death masks and a revelation involving carrier pigeons! Naturally, the film doesn't always completely make sense and sometimes you just have to go along with it; but really, that is what makes this film so much fun to watch. There's plenty of entertainment and since the film is only short at about eighty minutes, the runtime is rather crowded - but that is a benefit if you ask me! The cinematography is just great; the black and white picture adds a real foreboding atmosphere to the film and the fog-drenched castle in which most of the film takes place makes for a really great central location. It all boils down to an unexpected and silly conclusion; but it's satisfying enough, despite feeling a little bit too rushed. Overall, The Sinister Monk is an excellent little film and I can certainly recommend it!

This is a solid middle-period entry in the long-running German "Krimi" series, based on the ingenious thrillers of Edgar Wallace. In this case, the film-makers were taking the plot seriously and not trying (much) to dazzle the viewer with the nifty cinematic trickery and vivid violence that would become the hallmark of the series. Fortunately, the plot is a strong one, involving the usual murderous infighting over an inheritance, a girls' boarding school, and the wonderfully avenging titular character who breaks necks with the visually impressive snap of his whip. The style fits best into the Eurospy genre of the 60s, which was director Reinl's forte. Besides the monk, there is a weird caretaker who keeps pigeons and who casts creepy facial masks of people at the school, which turn into death masks after the inevitable murder of their models (shades of "I Bury the Living"). A poisoned water pistol serves as one girl's defense from prospective attackers. Karin Dor, the director's statuesque wife, resembles Barbara Steele in the lead role, and series favourite Eddie Arent, normally the effective comic relief, has a quite unexpected role to play here. More effort than usual is spent establishing the Thames-side background, though the German origin is unmistakable. Best of all is the wild lounge score by retro-hip composer Peter Thomas, with chimes and cascading organ swells (à la Vic Mizzy of "Munsters" fame) to highlight the monk's appearances. A lurid-colour sequel, "The Monk With The Whip", is much more campy and flamboyant, in keeping with the later efforts in the series directed by Alfred Vohrer.

This 34 year old german movie probably is not a timeless piece of art, yet it still is very entertaining. Check out the music, too!!!

Among the Wallace movie series during the 60s this is one of the best entries.