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A mad scientist (Wilhelm Vorwerg) develops a odorless poison gas - but doesn't live to show it to the world as he's killed by the mysterious sinister monk. Convict Keeney (Siegfried Rauch) is sprung from prison to hand sorority girl Pam (Ewa Strömberg) a bible, then is paid and transported back to prison. Pam opens the bible, it emits poison gas and immediately kills her. Scotland Yard's inspector Higgins (Joachim Fuchsberger) and Sir John (Siegfried Schürenberg) investigate at her sorority, run by one Harriet Foster (Tilly Lauenstein), only to find out it's full of suspects, like Harriet's own brother Denver (Harry Riebauer), who's having sex parties with some of the girls in the garden house, chemistry teacher Keyston (Konrad Georg), who has just been released from prison where he served 20 years for murdering a girl, and the like. Of course, more girls are murdered, even with the police on the premises, the sinister monk, who kills using a whip, shows up time and again, Keeney is sprung from prison and returned time and again, and even if Higgins and Sir John figure out his identity eventually, they can't keep him from being murdered by his own employer. And yet the murders continue, and what's more, one by one the suspects end up dead ...

Eventually, Higgins and Sir John figure out the killer must be after another sorority girl, Ann Portland (Uschi Glas), who will inherit a vast fortune on her 21st birthday, which just happens to be tomorrow, but they can't keep her from being kidnapped - so Higgins decides to escape from prison the way Keeney did and is so delivered right into the lair of the villain at the heart of it all. There he finds Ann in a cage in an alligator pit, shoots the sinister monk, who turns out to be Harriet Foster, to ultimately get their hands on the mastermind of the whole operation, who turns out to be the harmless caretaker (Hans Epskamp) of the sorority who's actually Ann's uncle who would have inherited her fortune would she die before turning 21. And to avert suspicion from himself, he killed all the other women - why though he just didn't kill her as well but kept her in his alligator pit is beyond me ...

Edgar Wallace's novel The Terror had been filmed only two years prior by the same production company as Der Unheimliche Mönch/The Sinister Monk, with Siegfried Schürenberg even playing the same role (while Uschi Glas got a much bigger part in this one), and that film is even referenced in a throwaway remark - so it stands to reason that inspiration wasn't running rampant within the halls of Rialto Film - and that said, Der Mönch mit der Peitsche is the much wilder movie, a narrative mess with a mad scientist thrown in as well as a supervillain with an alligator pit, and plenty of totally pointless subplots as well as a resolution totally pulled out of a hat. Plus, Siegfried Schürenberg's Sir John was hardly ever any creepier as in this one - not the actor's fault that the script basically makes him an old pervert though. And that all said, it's fun to watch, as at least everything's put together well and moves at a steady pace, and is silly enough to just entertain. Not a great movie in any sense mind you, and not to be taken seriously - but fun!

review © by Mike Haberfelner

 

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