The Sinister Monk

"I'm not going to cover up for you this time!"

Lord Wilmore has died and left his  whole estate to his grand daughter, Gwendolin (Karin Dor), but the will is stolen and without it, the estate will be divided among Wilmore's adult children. When the thieves send a copy of the will to the Lord Wilmore's son, Richard (Sigfried Lowitz), he uses it to blackmail his siblings John (Sigfried Schürenberg) and Patricia (Ilse Steppat) - give him the majority of the inheritance or lose it all to Gwendolin. In an effort to protect her and win her favor, Patricia invites Gwendolin to stay at the Manor, which is now a girls' boarding school. When Gwendolin arrives, she learns that the house is  haunted by the ghost of a Medieval monk - and soon people start getting murdered by a whip-weilding figure in a black hood. Is the ghost of the monk really behind the killings? Or could the killer be Patricia's smarmy son, Ronnie (Hartmut Reck), who has been implicated in the disappearance of three students? Maybe it's the creepy artist who rents a room in the manor or the mysterious new French teacher? Inspector Bratt ( Harald Leipnitz) has no shortage of suspects in this case!

The Sinister Monk is brought to you by the same team that made Room 13. In fact, Rialto Films did a whole series of popular films in the 60's based on the novels of Edgar Wallace, using the same stock cast and crew. All of the films cross over into the worlds of crime dramas and drawing room mysteries, but this one stands out for its unusual costumed killer and his gruesomely original method of murder. There's a lot going on with a wide array of suspects and subplots about human trafficking and Gewndolin's father's wrongful conviction for murder, but somehow it all manages come to a satisfying conclusion.

• Just like in Room 13, the movie is in black and white but the titles are in color.

• You may recognize Mary, one of the boarding school girls, as Uschi Glas (credited as Ursula Glas). This is one of her first film roles, but she'd go on to star in one of my favorite gialli, Seven Blood-Stained Orchids.

What the Hell am I Watching?

The craziest thing in this movie is how the Monk kills his victims - he whips them from a distance, coiling the lash around the victim's neck and then yanking to break their spine. 

Props to Lola (Uta Levka) who had the ingenuity to fill a squirt gun with sulfuric acid for self defense.

Also, I suspect that the taxidermy in Gwendolin's room might be a subtle homage to Psycho.

Fashion Moment:

Being the matriarch and Head Mistress of the school, Patricia is really the only one who gets to glam it up.

However in one scene, Gwendolin gets a note telling her to go to London to get proof of her wrongfully-convicted father's innocence and not to tell anyone. She complies but, remembering that several girls have been kidnapped during trips to the city, she makes sure Detective Bratt knows she's leaving the Manor wearing this suit with a bold houndstooth pattern, making it easy for the police to trail her.

Room 13

Well, she's covered up in a way she never expected.

After twenty years away, notorious London gangster Joe Legge (Richard Häussler) pays a visit to Sir Robert Marney (Walter Rilla), to blackmail him into participating in a train robbery. Scotland Yard gets wind of this meeting and, to avoid the scandal of a police investigation, they hire private eye Johnny Gray (Joachim Fuschberger) to look into it. Johnny tracks Legge and his mob to the Highlow Club, where they plan their heist from a secret room. But the investigation is complicated when women at the club start turning up dead - their throats slit with a razor belonging to Sir Robert. But is Sir Robert the killer? Will Legge pull off his train heist? And can Johnny solve the case before it's too late?

Room 13 (not to be confused with The Girl in Room 2A) is barely a giallo. Really, it's about 80% heist movie, 15% spy thriller and 5% giallo, but that 5% is enough to earn it a place on this list. Some early gialli cling to the framework of gothic horror, but this one is based more on film noir. It's a fun movie to watch with a quick run time, a couple of explosions, a few jokes thrown in and a murder mystery B-plot, but it doesn't have the outrageous style that would develop in later gialli.

• The movie was based on the novel of the same name, by Edgar Wallace, best known as the creator of King Kong.

• The movie is in black and white, but the credits are in color.

• The most famous cast member is Karin Dor, who plays Sir Robert's daughter, Denise. You may remember her as Helga Brandt in You Only Live Twice.

• The body count in this movie is awfully high, but keep in mind that half of the deaths occur in the final shootout between police and mobsters.

What the Hell am I Watching?

When police investigate the murder of a burlesque stripper at the Highlow Club, they realize that she's an undercover officer because she's wearing "official underwear of Scotland Yard."

Also, this is what a forensic crime lab looks like in 1964.

Fashion Moment:

Very little to report. Lots of tweed and very formal suits.

The dancers at the club wear these over-complicated 19th century can-can outfits, but that's as daring as the fashion gets.