After having enjoyed my intro to the Krimi sub-genre with the fun The Secret of the Black Trunk,I decided the for my next taste of the Krimi cream that I would take a look at one of the titles that starred "the queen of the Krimi's":Karin Dor.The plot:Attending the reading of their fathers will shortly after having loyal sat by his bedside as he died,the family are horrified to hear from their dad's solicitor,that just before he died,their father changed his will,so that the only thing the his "loyal" family get,would be a boarding school that his daughter (Lady Patricia) has been running for years,with the rest of his property and cash all going to his beloved granddaughter Gwendolin.Heading back to his office so that he can official record the changes that the man made on his death bed,the solicitor is stopped in his tracks by a black coat wearing member of the family,who due to being furious in the way that their dad has betrayed them,kills the solicitor and runs off with the only known copy of the will.A few days later:Gathering in Patricia's boarding school to share their now mutual hated of dad,kind family member Richard gives everyone the shock of their lives,when he revels that he now has the will in his hands,thanks to it being sent to him from an anonymous source.Thrilled by the second chance that they have been given,most of the family begin to plan on how they can get rid of Gwendolin. (who does not know anything about what she has inherited) so that they can write the wrong that their father has put on them.Horrified over the murder plans that she is hearing from the rest of her family, (whilst also starting to wonder how she can use her brains to get some cash out of Gwendolin) Lady Patricia decides to invite Gwendolin up for a "holiday" at her boarding school,so that Patricia can keep a watchful eye on her granddaughter,and her bloodthirsty family members.Arriving to Lady Patricia's boarding school thrilled that she will be able to catch up with relatives who she has not seen for years,Gwendolin soon begins to suspect that something much more sinister may be connected to this family reunion,when a stranger carrying a long whip and wearing a monks outfit starts haunting the school grounds and killing Gwendolin's "loyal" family members,one by one.View on the film:Showing colour to seep into the opening credits of this otherwise black and white film,director Harald Reinl makes his and Reinl's then- wife Karin Dor's departure from the Krimi sub-genre one that goes off with real style that brings the curtain down on the "B & W" era of the genre with a real elegance.Keeping the film mostly confined to Lady Patricia's boarding school,Reinl creates a wonderful mysterious atmosphere by placing each of Gwendolin's family members around the edges of the screen,so that the viewer may pick up a piece of the puzzle from the corner of their eyes when the family members drop their mask at the very corner of the screen.Soaking the Krimi in a Film Noir fog,Reinl displays a strong,ultra stylised pop-art eye for each of the appearances from the black wove wearing sinister monk,with Reinl making the monk's white whip slash across the screen like a lightning bolt,as the monk's killing of the family members,leads to the person behind "the monk" getting closer and closer to wrapping the deadly whip around Gwendolin's innocent neck.For their smart adaptation of the Edgar Wallace novel The Terror,writer's Fred Denger and J. Joachim Bartsch (who sadly died just before the movie came out) deliver a superb screenplay that combines Film Noir,Giallo and Krimi elements that make the nail-biting murder- mystery plot a truly tense,edge of the seat thrill ride.Backed by a suitably weird sounding Hammond organ score by Peter Thomas,Denger and Bartsch smartly inject off-beat Black Comedy moments into the film, (from one of the boarding school girl's filling a plastic gun with acid for protection,to one of the family members being obsessed with making "death masks"!) so that they can also subtly place clues to the real identity of The Monk,without completely raising the viewer's alert on their first viewing.Along with the great off-beat comedic moments in the movie,Denger and Bartsch gradually push a Film Noir mood right to the front,with the blood-thirsty,money hungry bond that each of the family share slowly unravelling across the screen,thanks to the monk's killing spree creating a rough friction between each of them,which leads to them not being able to tell "shadows" of Gwendolin apart,and also causes each of the family members to drop their mask to Gwendolin one by one,to reveal the ruthless,vicious darkness that lurks behind each of their cheerful smiles.Marking her official farewell to be the "queen" of the Krimi, the very pretty Karin Dor gives an excellent performance that balances Gwendolin's inner nativity with a striking Gothic Horror like outer appearance.Keeping Gwendolin's smile on the corner of the lips,Dor shows Gwendolin's smile to fade away as she starts to unknowingly investigate the slots that each of her family members fit into,which leads to Karin showing Gwendolin search around the darken corners of her family,whilst also becoming extremely determined in unmasking the identity of the Krimi Sinister Monk.

When an old man dies just after making his will, the attorney carrying the will is killed in a car crash and the will is stolen. The will then shows up just before the estate is to be divided. The vultures of the family then scheme to prevent the rightful heir from taking possession of the estate, but a dark monk like figure begins to bump people off. Good Edgar Wallace adaptation is done in by in appropriate Hammond organ music which cuts across the proceedings. The music simply destroys any sense of mood and dread each time its heard. Who's idea was it to use it? It's a shame because this is one of the better later Wallace films. Worth a look if you can discount the music (and a couple of moments –the final death- that are just plain silly)

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.