Customer Reviews

College Girl Murders

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Here's the lowdown on the College Girl Murders. First,this is an entry in Rialto Film's Edgar Wallace series from 1967 originally titled Der Monch mit der Peitsche (English: The Monk With the Whip). Its based on the oft filmed Edgar Wallace play The Terror which has been filmed numerous times. It is better in the original German, but still gives a visual wallop in this wacked out dubbed version of questionable quality. This movie is NOT a horror film its a film thriller (in German a krimi).This has an evil mastermind with a vile plan who dresses like a sinister red monk with a pointy hood who breaks peoples necks with a whip and gasses private school girls with cyanide gas from a device hidden in a hymnal.....Where else but an Edgar Wallace krimi can you find something this utterly mindbogglingly pulp! So yeah check this out its the good stuff!

After a student at a girls' boarding school is found poisoned, an incompetent police inspector and his competent assistant and called in to solve the murder.

This 1967 murder mystery is a lot of fun. Although made in German, with German actors (it's dubbed into English), the film is set in England and clearly targeted at the English/International market. The film is very silly (I think it was intended to be light-hearted but it is also so-bad-it's-funny in parts) and has all of the elements of a James Bond movie (which had just started to become popular at around this time): a master criminal with a top secret lair, complete with a pit filled with crocodiles; a homicidal "monk" with a bull whip (actually a person in a red robe that looks like something a Klansman would wear); mad scientists, etc.

Apparently this movie is based on a novel by Edgar Wallace, but to my knowledge Edgar Wallace never wrote a novel with a plot even vaguely resembling this one (and between my father and myself, we have read most of Wallace's books). However, the story is still pretty interesting. It's not a great plot, I imagine that I will have forgotten the finer details by the end of the week, but it kept me entertained for the films duration. Being written in the 1960's, the film is as trashy as you would expect it to be (it contains the requisite beautiful young girls and lecherous middle-aged men that seem to be included in all films of this era), but looking back on it from the "enlightened" 21st century, that just adds to its charm.

The College Girl Murders (1967) is a spooky and fun mystery thriller, that keeps you guessing. Loosely based on a story by Edgar Wallace, the plot features a whip wielding hooded killer, a number of wicked kills, an assortment of attractive young women, and a mysterious criminal mastermind that is behind all the mayhem.

A scientist develops the formula for a new poison gas, and turns it over a mysterious mastermind. The scientist's reward is death, as a figure dressed like a monk, in red robe and hood, snaps a whip around his neck. Frank Connor (Siegfried Rauch), an inmate doing time in prison, is recruited by the mastermind to act as a hit man, and employs the poison to kill a young woman. The murder brings the police, led by Inspector Higgins (Joachim Fuchsberger), and his slightly daffy superior Sir John (Siegfried Schurenberg), to the women's college the victim was attending. Soon the monk makes an appearance at the college, and other students and members of the staff begin to turn up dead, leaving the police baffled and confused. This college is the kind of place where the instructors get involved with students, and Martin Denver (Harry Riebauer), the brother of headmistress Harriet Foster (Tilly Lauenstein), is also partying with the young ladies.

Set in Britain, dubbed in English, and directed by Alfred Vohrer, The College Girl Murders is a krimi, a German production that features mostly German actors. This is a fast paced tale with a large cast, a high body count, some stylish kills, and a number of surprise twists. The mystery angle is played up nicely, as the identity and motives of the unknown mastermind arranging the various murders, is kept well hidden until the end. Credibility is rather low, and the tone may be less than deadly serious, but overall this is a twisted and entertaining little tale. Many of the peripheral matters make little sense, such as a college that has no classes except for swimming, a top secret underground headquarters complete with crocodiles, and prisoners who routinely leave prison like one of Hogan's Heroes. Still, the overall atmosphere of mystery, sleazy behavior, and attractively attired women like Uschi Glas, Grit Boettcher, Suzanne Roquette, and Ilse Page, may be sufficient to hold your interest. The film also features a cool score by Martin Bottcher that adds some suspense, and when appropriate, also helps keep things pumping along.

If you like krimis or giallos from the 60's with a high body count, a dash of humor, and some goofy elements, The College Girl Murders may be of interest. The Dark Sky edition features a pretty good quality widescreen transfer, with some rich saturated colors.

I first saw this film as a kid on late night TV. The overlying sexual tension was a real turn on. Plot was silly, but the continuing thread throughout the film was the stupid murders and the dirty old man scenarios. The College Dean's sexy secretary was both erotic and funny at the same time.

I first saw this movie back in the mid 70's on Screaming Yellow Theater. Thought it was so goofy or campy or both. I think it was the first time I ever screen talked, long before MST3K. If you like that kinda thing, you'll like this movie.

Really good looking print of some really good looking German college girls being knocked off one by one! This has the feel of a James Bond movie; gadgets, bizarre deaths, mad scientists and a criminal mastermind. But perhaps it's Bond here who is the copycat, being himself influenced by the father of German Krimis, Dr. Mabuse, Fritz Lang's original Criminal Mastermind who set-up the plot standards for Bondish adventures and these German-made Edgar Wallace thrillers of the early to mid 1960's.
The plot of COLLEGE GIRL MURDERS is too outlandish to give any spoilers, yet is an oft repeated scenario, so much so in that the Chief inspector Sir John asks Detective Higgins about a similar past case to which Higgins replies, "...yes, the Sinister Monk.", the title of a previous entry in the series of Wallace Krimis...you REALLY need to see as many of these wonderful films as possible!
Just don't take this too seriously. Keep an open mind to the body count and daft humor. This isn't GET SMART by any means but it isn't THE IPCRESS FILE either. It's just a good old fashioned murder mystery loaded with exploitation value. A good time can be had here for fans of Euro-mystery-trash. Great color, great soundtrack, lots of sexy girls in bathing suits, nice locations, abundant fog, dead bodies galore, mindless killings, and a red-hooded whip-brandishing maniac!....What's not to like?

This German horror flick tries its best to frighten in spite of the mediocre plot. Scariest of all is the flat English dubbing throughout this less than ideal film. Unless you can get an original language copy, skip this one altogether.