THE SINISTER MONK (1965)
(a.k.a. DER UNHEIMLICHE MONCH)
Article #1610 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 8-11-2005
Posting Date: 1-8-2006
Directed by Harold Reinl
Featuring Karin Dor, Harald Leipnitz, Siegfried Lowitz

When an old man dies, several relatives engage in manipulative attempts to take hold of the family fortune, but things get complicated when they start to be knocked off by a whip-wielding monk.

Trying to follow the plot of a krimi is difficult at the best of times, and this one involves a bewildering assortment of elements such as a girls’ school, secret wills, whip-wielding monks, kidnapping rackets, carrier pigeons, death masks, and water guns filled with sulphuric acid to contend with. However, at least the other krimis I’ve seen have a consistent stylistic tenor to them that I can relate to. Now, despite the fact that this movie has some great moments (my favorite: a whip attack on a man in a convertible), I found this one more annoying than enjoyable. The reason is simple; I dislike the musical soundtrack, which sounds vaguely James Bondian and which I found to be profoundly at odds with the stark black and white photography and the general serious mood of the piece. As a result, I didn’t know how I was to react to most of the scenes; the whip attacks would have been a lot scarier if the monk’s organ theme wasn’t so melodramatically corny, and I found myself badly distracted from the story at times. This is probably a matter of taste; I’ve seen a number of reviews of this one from people who really enjoyed the music. They can have this one; I suspect the next time I’m in the mood for a krimi, this is not the one I’ll put on.

SH! THE OCTOPUS (1937)
Article #1607 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 8-8-2005
Posting Date: 1-5-2006
Directed by William C. McGann
Featuring Hugh Herbert, Allan Jenkins, Marcia Ralston

Two police detectives investigate a report of a murder at an old dark lighthouse, and found themselves enmeshed in a web of diabolical crime from someone known only as The Octopus.

There are some things in this world that are simply wastes of time. One of them is trying to sort out the plot of this bizarre horror comedy. It’s your basic “old dark house” story set in a lighthouse, with a corpse hanging from the rafters but no way to get up there, a tentacled monster, a hook-handed captain (who isn’t what he seems), a young, handsome painter (who isn’t what he seems), a young woman looking for her father, etc, etc. On top of the octopus, we also have encounters with frogs, a turtle and a barking seal. There’s weird plot twists at every turn, more comic relief than anything for it to relieve (courtesy of Hugh Herbert and Allen Jenkins), and one of the most strikingly effective villain unmaskings I’ve ever seen in a movie of this ilk. And it all leads up to…well, I won’t give away the ending other than to say there’s a reason why the story doesn’t make any sense. Still, it’s really nice to have an octopus on the loose rather than the usual man in a gorilla suit. By the way, Nanny’s a goat.

SHOCK WAVES (1977)
Article #1606 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 8-7-2005
Posting Date: 1-4-2006
Directed by Ken Wiederhorn
Featuring Peter Cushing, John Carradine, Brooke Adams

Survivors of a boat wreck find themselves on an island terrorized by underwater zombies, the product of Nazi experimentation.

My DVD of this movie has a quote calling it “The best of the Nazi Zombie movies”, and it may be; truth of the matter, I had to strain to think of others I’ve seen, and the only one I could dredge up (REVENGE OF THE ZOMBIES) wasn’t much competition to begin with. And when I checked the “nazi-zombie” category on IMDB, I didn’t see anything there that would give this movie a run for its money. Yet, I have to say that if this movie is the best of the subgenre, I feel it’s more by default than by this movie’s intrinsic strengths.

The movie’s strengths are easy to see; it has the novelty value of giving us both Peter Cushing and John Carradine together for the first time; it’s too bad that the character played by the latter is already dead before the character played by the former shows up, so they have no scenes together. The make-up is quite striking, and the scenes of the zombies walking underwater and rising up from the waves are very effective. Unfortunately, the movie uses them so much they lose their effectiveness; after the umpteenth shot of a zombie poking his head out of the water and then ducking back down, I was ready to move on. The movie also has a weak script and some poor editing; many of the characters are left undeveloped, some of the scenes seem to be happening at random, and often it’s difficult to figure out where the zombies are in relation to the human characters. The droning and repetitive soundtrack is eerie enough, but has too little variation to be really effective and it also tends to make each scene of the movie feel more or less like all the others. It’s a shame; the basic premise and situations here show a lot of promise, and with a better script, more assured direction and a stronger sense of pace, this one could have been a knockout rather than a mixed bag.

THE SHIVER OF THE VAMPIRES (1970)
(a.k.a. SEX AND THE VAMPIRE / LE FRISSON DES VAMPIRES)
Article #1605 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 8-6-2005
Posting Date: 1-3-2006
Directed by Jean Rollin
Featuring Sandra Julien, Jean-Marie Durand, Jacques Robiolles

A pair of newlyweds decide to spend their honeymoon at the castle of two of the bride’s cousins, but they discover on their arrival that the cousins are dead. In truth, they have now become vampires.

Hey it’s Mr. Jean (Arty-erotic-gory) Rollin again with another vampire flick. Of the four movies I’ve covered of his so far, three have been about vampires. Once again, all of the female characters spend most of the movie in various states of undress, there is a fair degree of blood, and all sorts of camera tricks and affected acting are on hand to remind you that you’re watching “art”. Naturally, the movie is beautiful to look at, but the arty touches are sometimes intrusive, and occasionally the result is unintentionally comic. Still, I found this one easier to follow than his other vampire movies (though in all honesty, I have to excuse THE NUDE VAMPIRE because I didn’t see it with subtitles), and there are some odd and interesting touches to the vampire lore. There’s a vampire that emerges from a clock, a murderous brassiere, and lots of lesbian encounters. If you’re familiar with Rollin, you know what to expect, but if you’ve tried him and don’t like him, this won’t change your mind. Me, I can take him or leave him, but I do find him easier to endure than Jesse Franco.

THE SEVEN DEADLY SINS (1952)
(a.k.a. LES SEPT PECHES CAPITAUX)
Article #1604 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 8-5-2005
Posting Date: 1-2-2006
Directed by Yves Allegret, Claude Autant-Lara, Eduardo De Filippo, Jean Dreville,
Georges Lacombe, Carlo Rim, Roberto Rossellini
Featuring Michele Morgan, Francoise Rosay, Jean Debucourt

A barker at a fair invites everyone to knock down the targets in ball-throwing game—the Seven Deadly Sins. For each sin, a story is told depicting that sin.

The fantastic content in this movie is relegated to the second of the stories, that of Sloth. In this story, St. Peter is frustrated by the breakneck pace of life on Earth, decides to turn Sloth into a virtue and sends Sloth to earth. It’s a cute story, full of special effects, but the story itself isn’t particularly satisfying, though at least it somewhat avoids the obviousness of some of the other stories.

At heart, that obviousness is the main problem I have with the movie; given the fact that you know which sin is being discussed at the beginning of each story, you find yourself generally unsurprised by the denouements of the particular segments. The stories generally work best when the characters are particularly well drawn, or the subjects are handled with a certain degree of depth. As a rule, the stories get better as they go along, with the hilarious take on Gluttony leading the pack; sure, you can see the final twist coming a mile away, but the set-up is inspired. The story of Envy shows perhaps the greatest depth, and it’s fascinating that the target of the main character’s envy is not another human being, but a cat. The movie also throws in an eighth deadly sin, but I largely see that one being something of an offshoot of Pride.

SECRETS OF THE FRENCH POLICE (1932)
Article #1603 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 8-4-2005
Posting Date: 1-1-2006
Directed by A. Edward Sutherland
Featuring Frank Morgan, Gwili Andre, Gregory Ratoff

The French police investigate the murder of one of their own, and find it is tied up with the kidnapping of a flower girl and a fraudulent claim about the discovery of Princess Anastasia.

Secrets? French? Ooo-la-la, it sounds pretty racy! Well, it isn’t. Their secrets seem to be that they refer to each other by codenames, disguise themselves as winos to buy cigarettes, use clever human-face jigsaw puzzles, and employ thieves to do some of their detective work. The secrets of the villain are more interesting; he’s a combination of Svengali, Fu Manchu and Ivan Igor, and it is his machinations (including hypnotism and a grotesque way of disposing of bodies) that adds the horror elements to this story. The first half is pretty confusing, but things clear up once they really get going with the Anastasia plot. It’s short and moderately entertaining, with the best parts coming towards the end of the movie.

THE SECRET LIFE OF WALTER MITTY (1947)
Article #1602 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 8-3-2005
Posting Date: 12-31-2005
Directed by Norman Z. McLeod
Featuring Danny Kaye, Virginia Mayo, Boris Karloff

A perpetual daydreamer finds himself mixed up with thieves after the Dutch crown jewels.

I haven’t read the James Thurber story on which this movie is based, but I’m willing to bet that the plot elements surrounding the Dutch crown jewels are nowhere to be found in it. Still, I suspect it was just the screenwriter’s way to take the daydreaming conceit and stretch it into a whole movie. Though it seems to be a favorite among Danny Kaye fans, I have to admit being a little disappointed by it, but then, I’m coming at it from the direction of a Boris Karloff fan, and despite the fact that he has two great scenes and a great opening line, you have to wait for half the movie to pass before he appears, and then he’s mostly shuttled off to the sidelines. Danny Kaye was a good choice for the role of Walter Mitty, especially during the sequences in which he fantasizes himself in several different scenarios; however, the movie strains things a little to give him his trademark musical numbers, which, though they’re amusing enough, feel out of place. The movie runs a bit long for my taste, but I do like the pulp magazine covers that decorate the office where he works, and there are lots of familiar faces, including Milton Parsons as a butler. A mixed bag, but it has its moments.

SATAN’S SCHOOL FOR GIRLS (1973)
Article #1601 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 8-2-2005
Posting Date: 12-30-2005
Directed by David Lowell Rich
Featuring Pamela Franklin, Kate Jackson, Lloyd Bochner

A woman enrolls in a school for women to find proof that the death of her sister was not a suicide.

For those attracted to this movie by the title (which seems to promise a certain amount of exploitation as well as horror), you should first be aware that this is an early-to-mid seventies TV movie that takes pains not to offend. And it doesn’t. Nor does it really engage the interest due to its terminal blandness. It makes a few attempts to scare, but after a woman is frightened by a wandering hobo and a handyman in the opening scenes, I pretty much came to the conclusion that the movie was just trying to be scary rather than actually being scary. The movie tries to be mysterious about the type of evil present in the school, but since the title gives it away, about the only mystery left is “Who is Satan?”, and practically every review I’ve read gives that away. It has a couple of good moments, in particular a scene in which a bevy of women with long poles prevent a professor from escaping from a pond and causing his death. This is mostly for people attracted by the cast of familiar names and faces, which also includes Roy Thinnes, Jo Van Fleet and Cheryl Ladd.