The Sinister Monk (1965)

Touches You

Strong and Moving!

Absolutely the worst movie.

Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

"Der unheimliche Mönch" or "The Sinister Monk" is a German movie from 1965, so it is already over 50 years old. The director is Harald Reinl and he made this one before moving on to Winnetou when Vohrer continued with the Edgar Wallace franchise. This one here is among the earlier German Edgar Wallace film from roughly half a century ago and it also shows because this one is still in black-and-white. Also it has lots of suspense, but the horror aspects from the latter films are missing completely. However, monks (especially with whips) were a famous thing apparently in these films and I must say this one here is not worse than the one about the monk that they made a couple years later in color. Honestly, the antagonist (=title character) is not as foolish in this older version. But unluckily, the story isn't more interesting either and I dare say both films are pretty underwhelming. The comedy aspect is also still missing in this older film here. The most known cast members here are certainly Karin Dor and Ilse Steppat (still a while before her appearance in a James Bond film and untimely death). But sadly, this duo is not good enough either to make this a rewarding watch. I give it a thumbs-down and I am actually glad it only runs for slightly over 80 minutes. Not recommended.

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!

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.