German Trailer:
Aka: The
College Girl Murders & The Prussic Factor. (Spoilers — but skip the
first paragraph plot description and you skip the spoilers.)
Der Mönch mit der Peitsche opens with two chemists inventing a deadly gas that
seemingly only kills those who immediately and directly inhale it (so if you're
to the left or right, chill). Chemist one kills chemist two with the gas and,
when delivering his invention to the contractor, is in turn killed by a hooded,
whip-bearing monk. (Karma's a bitch.) Mr. Mysterious Contractor then arranges for jailed cons to escape
for a day to kill various girls of a boarding school near London with the gas,
the first time using a specially built Bible which releases the gas into the
face of the innocent girl during mass, the remaining times with a rather bulky
spray gun. (Oddly enough, while the Bible actually released a gas, the spray
gun seemingly spurts masses of liquid, easily a hundred times the amount of
poison used in the first two murders.) Inspector Higgins (Joachim Fuchsberger)
and Sir John (Siegfried Schürenberg of The Avenger
[1960], The Inn on the River [1962], The Indian Scarf [1963] and The Hand of Power
[1968]) investigate, but are unable to stop further murders. The victims soon
include various teachers, the writer Mark Denver (Harry Riebauer), and a few
other unimportant people; some die by gas, a few get shot, some get their neck
broken by the well-aimed whip of the hooded monk. While Sir John is busy ogling
girls and trying to solve the crime from a "psychological aspect",
the clues Higgins follows convinces him that the young,
soon-to-inherit-a-lot-of-money Ann Portland (Uschi Glas, who also had a small
part in Der unheimliche Mönch [1965
/ trailer]) is also in line to be killed.
A dead con, a machinegun-bearing chauffer, and a kidnapped damsel in distress
later, Ann Portland survives to inherit, secret identities get unmasked, and
the bad guys mostly die…
Der Mönch mit der Peitsch is the forth film based on its original source, a
play entitled The Terror, which Edgar Wallace transcribed into the novel
form in 1929, a year after director Roy del Ruth made the first pre-code film
version of the "gothic" thriller in 1928. Like the written versions, that
movie was entitled The Terror, and, according to Denis Gifford's Pictorial
History of Horror Movies, del Ruth's film, the second full-length
talkie ever made, is also the first sound horror film ever made.* (Too bad it's
a lost film.) A commercial success — and, according to Gifford, an artistic
one, too — del Ruth's version of The Terror inspired two eventual
remakes: Howard Bretherton's criminal comedy The Return of the Terror
(1934), a sequel of sorts starring Mary Astor and Lyle Talbot (and featuring J.
Carroll Naish), and the far more serious (and true to its source) British
production directed by Richard Bird four years later, again entitled simply The
Terror (full movie).
* Elsewhere, it
is merely claimed to be the second talkie released by Warner Bros & the
first talkie horror…. By the nature of its plot, that would also make it the
first talkie body-count flick.
Twenty-seven years later, producer Horst Wendlandt had
his scriptwriters create a new, more than slightly altered version of the story
for his final black-and-white Wallace film production, Der unheimliche
Mönch aka The Sinister Monk (1965
/ trailer).
Excellently directed with creativity and professionalism by Harald Reinl [8 July
1908 – 9 Oct 1986] and starring his
wife, the beautiful Karin Dor [22 Feb 1938 – 6 Nov 2017]** (in her last appearance in a Rialto Wallace film),
the earlier B&W version was an artistic and critical success, so it is
hardly surprising — though definitely saddening — that Wendlandt chose to let
the basic premise be regurgitated a second time in color two years later as the
creative air began to go out of the Rialto series. But in all truth, even the stalest of the Rialto
Wallaces, especially those still made in Germany,*** are always enjoyable in
their own madcap, totally psychotronic way. The same can be said of this off-the-wall
movie here.
** He should have stayed married to her: "In
1986, in his Tenerife retirement home, he was stabbed to death by Daniela Maria
Delis, his alcoholic [second] wife and a former actress from Czechoslovakia."
*** The final movies of the series, made as Italian
co-productions, are better enjoyed as tacky giallo
than tacky Rialto Wallaces, but almost all will leave you wanting more.
The 1967 color version of The Terror, nee Der unheimliche Mönch, was
renamed Der Mönch mit der Peitsche and made and released between
the two more enjoyable Rialto Wallaces, Die blaue Hand (1967 / trailer)
and Der Hund von Blackwood Castle (1967 / trailer),
both of which were also directed by Alfred Vohrer and written by Herbert
Reinicker. Der Mönch mit der Peitsche is really not only not as good
the two other Rialto productions from 1967, but it is also not just a luridly
colored, third-rate rehash of the far more artistically satisfying B&W
version. In fact, even if, as a whole, Vohrer's version of the story begins to
display the trademark laziness and slap-dash quality of his later, often almost
unbearable cinematic mistakes, the general tackiness and campiness makes the
ridiculous flick fun. By now, Vohrer was well on his way to his
"mature" burlesque style that he took to the extremes in the utterly
ridiculous but funny Der Gorilla von Soho (1968 / trailer)
and the generally less satisfying and intermittently funny Der Mann mit dem
Glasauge (1968 / trailer),
which has perhaps one of the worst endings of all the German Wallace movies.
The saving graces that make Der Mönch mit der
Peitsche enjoyable as a bad movie are easy to list: the neo-Pop color
scheme, the totally idiotic story, the occasionally scurrile visuals, and the bat-shit
crazy narrative are total weirdsville. If you always thought the only thing Batman: The Movie (1966 / trailer)
needed to be a good movie was dead nubiles and skin and more second-rate James
Bond interiors, then you'll like Der Mönch mit der Peitsche.
Among the enjoyable highpoints of the movie's saving
graces: the whip-bearing monk dressed completely in red does indeed look cool,
the general carnal attitudes the men display towards the young girls of the
boarding school is oddly perverse (and totally un-PC by contemporary standards),
the swimming pool with a below surface viewing window is hilarious, the
candlelit villain's lair full of huge fish tanks complete with sea turtles and
big fish is impressive, and Martin
Böttcher's score is noteworthy as being one of his best.
Nevertheless, by this time director Vorher was one of
the busiest directors around (between 1966 and 1969, he averaged roughly 2.5 feature
films a year), so the direction, while occasionally flashy, looks rushed and a
bit lazy. This does its damage, and almost stops the exceptionally illogical
and unbelievable from transcending its faults, despite some excellent casting. In
the end, however, age has been kind to the movie, as all that which is now
outdated adds a whole new layer of fun. Der Mönch mit der Peitsche makes for excellent viewing with the kiddies
or when stoned or on other mind-altering substances.
Much like the substantially
better Im
Banne des Unheimlichen aka The Hand of Power
(1968), this movie is often seriously on another planet, one called Goofy
Prime, and thus can be enjoyed as a total piece of inanely colored and
coiffured pop trash. If you know nothing about German Wallace films, have never
seen one before, but are a fan of luridly colored kitsch 60s Eurotrash, this
baby will surely give you a hard on (or, as the case may be, make you wet).
On the other hand, if you tend to the more gothic, horror-tinged Wallace flicks or
German krimis, keep your distance
from Der Mönch mit der Peitsche.
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