User Reviews

I'll say one thing for the strangler of the film's title, he's one allusive, crafty bastard. Director Harald Reinl yet again brings us one very entertaining Krimi mystery thriller concerning a murderer, donning a black ski mask, leather jacket and gloves(..he's also missing a digit from his hand, a little detail that provides him with an identifiable trait the detectives can work with)strangling folks around an ancient castle owned by the broke Lord Blackmoor(Hans Reiser), whose renting his place to Claridge Dorsett(Karin Dor)and her uncle Lucius Clark(Rudolf Fernau), seen at the beginning of the film in a ceremony, having been knighted by her majesty the Queen. Scotland Yard Inspector Jeff Mitchell(Harry Riebauer)and his partner Watson(Gerhard Hartig)are called on the case after a body is found on the premises of the Blackmoor castle, a guard who was strangled by the killer..the killer confronts Lucius, charging him with seizing diamonds, threatening to get them out of memory for his slain father. What's soon discovered, however, is that Lucius was in fact having an affair with his assistant's wife and that the killer is his son, both men have a missing finger! The overly complex plot also has a very unstable ex-con, Anthony(Dieter Eppler), working as the butler, who cuts the diamonds for Lucius, harboring an unhinged obsession with keeping his work to himself, proposing that if his boss killed Claridge, they'd inherit a fortune owed to her on her 21st birthday..also featured is an owner of a popular, trashy strip club-pub, Tavish(Hans Nielsen)who is the one to rest the diamonds from Lucius, his only benefactor willing to take such a risk(..although, Anthony continues to interfere with these transactions, causing major problems between the two business associates)and a sneaky dame, Judy(Ingmar Zeisberg), who has a series of aliases, actually having close ties with the strangler, while working as a barmaid in the club. And, if that wasn't enough, a newspaper reporter, Mike Pierce(Hans Reiser), worms his way into the case, coercing Claridge(..who is a reporter as well)into their becoming a team covering the series of attacks that accumulate over time. Include a suspicious lawyer, Dr. Tromby(Richard Häussler), who works for Tavish, attempting to pry away the diamonds worth a fortune(..the diamonds are concealed in a cigar case)and some silly shenanigans involving Lord Blackmoor and his nephew, Tom(Peter Nestler), & you have quite a full pallet.

Despite the massive plot, I think many viewers will identify the killer right away just by his suspicious behavior alone. It's blatantly obvious that Anthony, despite his hostile intent towards Claridge, is the glaring red herring in regards to the ski-masked psycho with amazing power and remarkable agility who escapes the clutches of detective Mitchell a few times. How the killer overpowers a few rather husky men, actually positioning them to the ground as he strangles the life out of them, may be a bit far-fetched. One neat decapitation regarding a motorcycle riding henchman for Tavish may remind folks of the grotesque finale of 2001 MANIACS. The busy plot should keep you interested as a list of ulterior motives grow as greedy hands desire to have the diamonds in Lucius' possession(..he's the only one who knows where the uncut diamonds are stored, behind a fiery furnace). Very few characters aren't corrupt or criminal, with the lovely Claridge, loyal to Lucius not knowing his unscrupulous past concerning his betrayal of her father, caught in the middle of the whole ugly ordeal. There's a cool dungeon underneath the castle which features a former torture chamber now in absolute ruin, and the killer attacks with ferocity, his fate, running from the police into the darkened marshy moors, is a fine, atmospheric climax. Good cast, with colorful characters, and lots of the usual twists and turns which make these Krimis such a blast to watch. Lots of thrilling set-pieces as well as the killer sets up traps for his nemesis who stand in his way of retrieving the diamonds and getting revenge for who he believed was his father.

"Der Würger von Schloß Blackmoor" or "The Strangler of Blackmoor Castle" is a West German German-language movie from 1963, so this one is already over 50 years old and as many of these early (Bryan) Edgar Wallace adaptations, it is a black-and-white film. And also like many of these, it runs for approximately 90 minutes, slightly shorter in fact. Also the names of the writers and cast are known to people who know a bit about these Wallace films. I am referring to the likes of Giller, Nielsen and Dor and others as well. The director is Harald Reinl, an Austrian Oscar nominee, who is most known for his Winnetou movies these days I guess. But he also made some of these Wallace films, even if most people don't know. The story here is also like in these other Wallace films. Nothing really stands out. Men of authority, stunning young women, a cop investigating, (not so) dangerous dogs, murder, some comedy etc. You really know what you can expect here if this is not the first Wallace adaptation. Kinski is not in here, which could have elevated the material at least a bit. I think with these Wallace films that if you have seen one you have seen almost all of them as they are just so very similar to each other. But the good thing is also that if you like one, then you will maybe like almost all of these. But it's really difficult to like them in my opinion. The cases are rarely as interesting as they want them to be. The acting is mediocre at best and the humor is a failure most of the time. And the title is a true give-away what this film is about, not just to which series it belongs. A strangler is killing people and the film is set in Great Britain as always. So yeah, now you see that it's all the same as in these other films as I already wrote in the title. Not worth checking out in my opinion. Thumbs down.

It was back in mid-June 1967 when I--and millions of other baby-boomer boys, I have a feeling--first developed a crush on beautiful, redheaded Karin Dor. With the opening of the fifth James Bond blowout, "You Only Live Twice," Dor, already a long-established actress in her native Germany (although few of us realized it at the time), was revealed to an international audience...one that could scarcely fail to be impressed by her turn as Helga Brandt, S.P.E.C.T.R.E. agent No. 11, whose demise in Ernst Stavro Blofeld's piranha pool is one of the series' most memorable moments. Over the intervening 47 (!) years, this viewer has endeavored to see a lot more of Dor, but with only scant success. Her role in Alfred Hitchcock's "Topaz" (1969), playing the brunette widow of a Cuban revolutionary, was easy enough to see, but other than that, I had to wait many years before finally seeing her in anything else. Thanks to the DVD revolution, I was fortunate enough to catch Karin in the 1967 German film "Die Schlangengrube und das Pendel" ("The Snake Pit and the Pendulum"), released here in the U.S. as "Torture Chamber of Dr. Sadism," which costarred her opposite Christopher Lee in an exceptionally well-done and exciting thriller. And now, oh happy day, we have Karin in a much earlier role, appearing in the 1963 German thriller entitled "Der Wurger von Schloss Blackmoor" ("The Strangler of Blackmoor Castle"). This film comes to us today via those notorious underachievers at Alpha Video, but for a change, the DVD picture quality of this B&W affair is pretty darn good, although the dubbing is abysmally lame.

In the film, 25-year-old Karin plays a young reporter with the unlikely name of Claridge Dorsett, who lives with her Uncle Lucius (Rudolf Fernau) in the titular abode that they rent from its goofy, bird-watching, Scotch landlord. Though Lucius is about to become a peer, he is sorely troubled, as a masked, nine-fingered intruder has begun to enter the castle grounds, demanding a cache of diamonds that he claims Lucius once purloined from his parents. This masked intruder also has the nasty habit of strangling anyone who gets in his way and scrawling the letter "M" on their foreheads (an allusion to Peter Lorre in a classic German film of 1931, perhaps?). It is soon revealed that Lucius does indeed have a hoard of diamonds hidden behind a blazing furnace in the castle dungeon, and that he is trying to sell them to the seedy owners of the Old Scavenger Inn strip club. But with the body count constantly going up, Lucius may be hard pressed to make his sale. Meanwhile, Inspector Mitchell of Scotland Yard (portrayed by Harry Riebauer, who looks like a cross between Mike Connors and ABC's Charlie Gibson) surely does have his hands full, trying to catch the murderer and stop the killings....

Unlike the only other "krimi" that I have ever seen, 1961's "Dead Eyes of London," which had been based on a novel by the remarkably prolific English author Edgar Wallace, "Blackmoor" was based on a novel by Wallace's son, Bryan Edgar Wallace. Though perhaps a tad less stylish than "Dead Eyes," and lacking the distinctive presences of that film's Klaus Kinski and grotesque Ady Berber, the 1963 picture still has much to offer. Director Harald Reinl (who was Karin's husband from 1954 - '68, and who later directed her in "Torture Chamber") does a nice job of keeping the atmosphere moody and suspenseful, while the ultrastrange electronic score of Oskar Sala only adds to the creepy feel of the proceedings. The story itself is a complex one that fortunately hangs together nicely, providing the viewer with many plausible suspects and red herrings, all of whom--the strip club owner, Lucius' butler, Claridge's fellow reporter, a crooked lawyer, that inane Scotsman, a blonde bar floozy--could conceivably be the killer. The film has a bare minimum of goofy humor, happily--"Dead Eyes had sported quite a bit, mainly in the person of the sweater-knitting police inspector played by Eddi Aren't--and boasts some well-done bits of nasty gruesomeness and spurts of action. In perhaps the most memorable of these, a wire strung across a country road decapitates Lucius' motorcycle messenger (in a scene that was seemingly copied in the worst film of 2013, Ridley Scott's "The Counselor"), after which our killer mails the head back to Blackmoor Castle in a box! The picture also dishes out an exciting indoor dukeout between Mitchell and the killer, an explosive sequence in which the killer uses a trail of burning gasoline to attack Mitchell's squad car, and a nighttime chase through the swamps around Blackmoor, nicely shot by DOP Ernst W. Kalinke. And as for our Karin? Well, she looks just fine (although her gorgeous red tresses cannot be appreciated in B&W, of course) and acts even better, although her character is a bit too much of a namby-pamby for this viewer's tastes, essentially coming off as a helpless damsel in distress. (Granted, Claridge IS threatened in one sequence by a diamond-cutting tool held to her eye and in another is held at knifepoint...either of which is preferable to a dunking in a piranha pool, I suppose.) Still, as I said of the "Torture Chamber" film, seeing Karin Dor in one of her difficult-to-see screen appearances was, for me, worth the price of admission alone. Now, if I can only track down a print of her following picture, 1963's "The Secret of the Black Widow," I will be an even happier man....

Pittsburgh's Chiller Theater really gave you something of everything: Universal monsters, science fiction, strange movies from Spain and Italy, kaiju from Japan and even krimi from Germany.

Directed by Harald Reinl, Der Würger von Schloß Blackmoor is a Bryan Edgar Wallace adaptation. Not Edgar Wallace, but his son. He wrote books of his own, adapted his father's stories for movies and even had some of his stories turned into films like this and The Phantom of Soho and The Dead Are Alive. There's also a rumor that he was an uncredited contributor to the script of The Cat o' Nine Tails.

The killer in this is strangling people on a British estate. However, not only does he do that, he then brands an M into the foreheads of those he murders and then decapitates them. Well, maybe he likes to make sure that they're dead.

The masked killer shows up after a party during which Lucius Clark (Rudolf Fernau) announces that he will be knighted. The hooded strangler accuses him of stealing diamonds and killing Charles Manning, then claims that he will kill until he gets what he wants. He may also only have nine fingers and the police, Lucius and his niece Claridge (Karin Dor, who would play Helga Brandt in You Only Live Twice and is also in The Torture Chamber of Dr. Sadism and Los Monstruos del Terror) must solve the case before more are killed.

This isn't one of those horror/thrillers that is going to car ate a cult following. It is often stagnant, frequently loud and sometimes confusing. A German film dubbed into English yet set in England, this starts off as promising, appropriately Gothic even if set in obvious modern times. The confrontation between an allegedly evil aristocrat and a masked intruder gives enough back story and motive, although there are way too many characters involved and perhaps too many minor plot twists. Creepy sound effects and music add to the atmospheric setting which makes for an intriguing look.

In spite of all of the positive aspects, I found myself only on occasion completely engrossed, yet found the sets more interesting than the overall story. I can't judge the performances simply because of the dubbing, but the editing and photography are certainly noteworthy. However, by the time that the strangler was identified, I was not all that intrigued anymore, so the conclusion to me did not come as a surprise. A few chilling moments made it on occasion spooky, so for what it is and for the era that it came from on, I didn't completely think that I had wasted my time.

An expensively produced "A" movie in Germany's Edgar Wallace and/or Bryan Edgar Wallace series, this one falls into the Bryan group. Director Harald Reinl makes excellent use of his atmospheric sets and locations. He is only let down by an overly complicated and totally unconvincing script. Fortunately, most of these inadequate plot turns, as well as the over-the-top characterizations by people like Rudolf Fernau and Dieter Eppler, Reinl manages to disguise by brisk pacing and clever use of the lavish production values provided – as noted above – by location lensing and stunningly sinister sets. However, the beautiful Karin Dor makes surprisingly little impact as the heroine and it's left to ninth-billed Ingmar Zeisberg to clinch the film's top acting honors.

The genre that "strangler of Blackmoor castle" belongs to is called a krimi, just like many others of its type, this movie is a gothic murder mystery cross horror with some light comedy relief, that hails from Germany. Most of these movies were based from the writings of Edgar Wallace, as is this one. If you are a fan of the Italian giallo movies (e.g. Dario Argento's Deep red or Mario bava's blood & black lace) then you can definitely see that the krimis were a massive influence on that slightly later genre. Let me also say that this film is more than just a horror despite the title, think of something like a early hammer film crossed with a Hitchcock & you'll have the idea. The setting is a gothic mansion, lots of creepy atmosphere but the monster here is of the human variety. A hooded killer invades the estate & assaults the owner demanding the return of stolen diamonds. To prove he means business, he leaves them the corpse of their grounds keeper, strangled then left with the letter M carved into his forehead. Scotland yard are called in & thus begins a cat & mouse game with buried secrets coming to light as the bodies pile up. The plot twists & turns its way to a final confrontation where all is revealed. But its not all doom & gloom as here & there we are treated to some light comedy relief (witty but not stupid)from the mixed bag of characters, similar to the sort that was even in the old universals. The plot is clever but not overly complex, so you don't have to be a die hard Agatha Christie fan or some such to enjoy it. All in all, everything is a nice balance. If you do like this type of film, why not also try others of the genre such as "the phantom of Soho" or "monster of London city" (which even stars the great Christopher Lee). I would personally give this five stars all round, it was ninety mins well spent. I would recommend it as a great introduction to the krimi genre.