Staff pick

Krimi: the German pulp thrillers

8 films · August 2026

West Germany filmed most of Edgar Wallace in fog, with a hooded killer and a wildly overqualified cast. Comfort food with a body count.

The Fellowship of the Frog
1959 · West Germany/Denmark · 90m
Obscurity: cult
The first Rialto Wallace krimi, and the reason the other thirty exist.
The Dead Eyes of London
1961 · West Germany · 95m
Obscurity: cult
Blind killers, insurance fraud, and the best fog in the series.
The Inn on the River
1962 · West Germany · 92m
Obscurity: cult
The Rialto Wallace machine at full tilt: fog, a harpoon and Klaus Kinski looking guilty.
The Black Abbot
1963 · France/West Germany · 89m
Obscurity: cult
The standard-issue Wallace krimi. Hood, abbey, inheritance, fog.
The Indian Scarf
1963 · West Germany · 83m
Obscurity: cult
Ten heirs in a Scottish castle, strangled one at a time. Kinski included.
The Sinister Monk
1965 · West Germany · 82m
Obscurity: cult
A whip-wielding monk killing heiresses. Closest the krimi got to giallo.
The College Girl Murders
1967 · West Germany · 88m
Obscurity: cult
The point where the black-and-white krimi tips over into full-colour giallo delirium.
The Creature with the Blue Hand
1967 · West Germany · 89m
Obscurity: cult
Kinski playing both twins and a killer's claw that snaps shut like a bear trap. The krimi going out swinging.

What the term means: Krimi in the glossary.

The Fellowship of the Frog