Exploitation films from West Germany

The Burning Moon

Shot-on-video German splatter so homemade you can smell the garage. Ittenbach's Herschell Gordon Lewis tribute act.

The Black Abbot

The standard-issue Wallace krimi. Hood, abbey, inheritance, fog.

The Sinister Monk

A whip-wielding monk killing heiresses. Closest the krimi got to giallo.

Chained Heat

Linda Blair goes to prison. A sleazy 80s update of the formula, with a corrupt warden and a hot tub.

The Dead Eyes of London

Blind killers, insurance fraud, and the best fog in the series.

The Inn on the River

The Rialto Wallace machine at full tilt: fog, a harpoon and Klaus Kinski looking guilty.

If You Meet Sartana Pray for Your Death

The gadget-gunslinger spaghetti west arrives fully dressed in black.

Schoolgirl Report

West Germany's pseudo-documentary sex series. Thirteen entries, vast profits, zero shame.

The Creature with the Blue Hand

Kinski playing both twins and a killer's claw that snaps shut like a bear trap. The krimi going out swinging.

The Fellowship of the Frog

The first Rialto Wallace krimi, and the reason the other thirty exist.

The Werewolf Versus the Vampire Woman

Naschy's Waldemar Daninsky at his most enjoyable.

Lisa and the Devil

Bava's most personal film, and his strangest. Telly Savalas as the devil, holding a lollipop.

Succubus

Franco's arthouse credentials, such as they are. Fritz Lang liked it.

The Grand Duel

Lee Van Cleef, one three-way showdown, and the Bacalov theme you know from Kill Bill.

The Indian Scarf

Ten heirs in a Scottish castle, strangled one at a time. Kinski included.

The Italian Connection

Mario Adorf on foot versus a car. Best chase in Italian cinema.

99 Women

Franco doing the formula early, with Mercedes McCambridge as the warden.

Der Todesking

Buttgereit's bleakest: seven suicides, one rotting corpse holding it together.

Nekromantik 2

Buttgereit's necrophilia sequel, prosecuted on arrival, and stranger than the first.

Short Night of Glass Dolls

Narrated by a paralysed man presumed dead. Unusual and very good.

The College Girl Murders

The point where the black-and-white krimi tips over into full-colour giallo delirium.

The Red Queen Kills Seven Times

A family curse, a killer in a red cloak, and a legend that kills every hundred years.

Trouble Every Day

Cannibal desire filmed like an art installation, and it will not hurry for you.

Daughters of Darkness

Delphine Seyrig as Bathory in an empty Ostend hotel. Genuinely elegant.

Cemetery Man

A cemetery caretaker shoots the returning dead and falls in love repeatedly. Beautiful and deranged.

Who Saw Her Die?

A child is murdered in Venice. A grieving father hunts the killer through the fog.

To the Devil a Daughter

Hammer's last gasp. Christopher Lee said it finished the studio off.

Companeros

Zapata western with Franco Nero and a very good Morricone theme.

Day of Anger

A gunfighter mentors a despised young man, then has to face what he created. Van Cleef at his best.

Nekromantik

German, banned widely, and much sadder than its reputation suggests.

What Have You Done to Solange?

Unusually sad for a giallo, and much better for it.

Vampyros Lesbos

Franco's most watchable. The soundtrack outlived the film by decades.

The Cat o' Nine Tails

Argento's least favourite of his own films. He is roughly right.

Blood and Black Lace

The template, and still the best-looking film on this list.

Salon Kitty

Nazisploitation with a real budget and Tinto Brass's dirty fingerprints. Ilsa was the knock-off.

My Name Is Nobody

The spaghetti western attends its own funeral, cracking jokes. Fonda, Terence Hill, and Leone's fingerprints everywhere.

A Fistful of Dollars

An unlicensed Yojimbo remake. Toho sued and won. Started everything.

For a Few Dollars More

Van Cleef arrives and the formula locks into place.

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

The cemetery sequence is the best three minutes in the genre.