Popular reviews

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  Review by Slig001 ★★★½

  This Rialto Krimi is a bit of a mess, but at the same time it's such a wonderful hodge podge of ideas that it's impossible not to enjoy it! The convoluted plot has a number of strands - but the main two sees a murderer on the loose, targeting women with a straight razor; and a bunch of gangsters planning a train robbery. The film starts off with a shot of a straight razor - and there's also a scene where a topless stripper is killed with a razor (complete with blood spurt!) It's not hard to see how these films were a precursor to the Italian Giallo. This one has a much more adult slant to it than the…

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  Review by Blair Russell ★★★½

  What a peculiar krimi film this was. As I haven’t watched one of these in awhile, I’ll briefly explain that these were German movies based on mystery novels from Edgar Wallace which usually had light horror elements. Here, the impact it had on Giallo was more pronounced; after all, there is a gloved killer who uses a razor and at one point a topless woman in a club is slashed in the neck. Not only does the viewer briefly see her bare breasts, so do we the blood spraying on a curtain. The earlier films I’ve seen weren’t like this.

  Otherwise it was largely the same that I’ve come to expect, except for the fact that two different plots are…

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  Review by sakana1 ★★★½ 7

  Room 13 is a bit of a more sophisticated Harald Reinl Edgar Wallace adaptation, one without a hint of the supernatural and with very little weirdness at its center. Instead, it's just a clever thriller, mixing an elaborate robbery with a series of murders and a 20-year-old death, to which everything seem linked. (It's also, as was typically the case with Reinl efforts, a lot of fun.)

  Partially set in a strip club, and starring Joachim Fuchsberger and Karin Dor in their more or less usual roles (albeit without the making out at the end, which is a huge let down), the film was the first Wallace adaptation limited to an adult audience, a reality which also made it the…

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  Review by threepenny ★★★½

  The Edgar Wallace 'Krimi' films have had a hell of a run, entering into their fifth successful year. But this one feels different. It feels like it's starting to run up against audiences who expect more violence, more titillation. The same old formula isn't enough anymore. And so a lot of the action takes place in a burlesque club, where the strip tease has advanced somewhat since the charmingly wholesome dance in The Devil's Daffodil. Now not only does the dancer undress, we even see a brief flash of naked breasts. The murders, using a straight razor, sometimes with a spray of blood. And there's a deeper psychological component to the killings, a twisted mind. This series is too often…

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  Review by Gregor Kreyca ★★½ 2

  Harald Reinl directs, Joachim Fuchsberger is a detective from Scotland Yard and Karin Dor is the damsel in distress... sort of. It’s as classic a set-up as it gets at this point in the Edgar Wallace series. Room 13 is a (uneven) mix of Giallo-like, black-glove wearing, razor-blade swinging murder mystery and a blackmail/heist thriller. On paper this should work extraordinarily well, but the plot as a whole is unfortunately not very interesting and rarely gains any momentum.

  The movie is a bit darker and more adult orientated than the ones before. Even showing a tiny bit of nudity in one of the strip-club scenes. That earned the movie an "over" 18 rating at release and some think that caused…

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  Review by Lorenzo ★★★½ 2

  My very first Krimi and Edgar Wallace film. This was fun and I can see the the influence these films had on the Giallo genre. The overall mystery is easy to decipher but there's the psychological element that I enjoyed at the end.

  It's safe to say that I will continue watching more Krimi films...

  The best part of the film for me was Eddi Arent as Higgins. This was a precursor of the Manequin film.

  Watched an English dubbed version.

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  Review by Boxhamster ★★★

  Gesichtet wurde die DVD von Universum Film.
  Fassungstitel: Zimmer 13.

  Ein Ganovenboss plant einen Eisenbahnüberfall und benötigt hierfür die Hilfe eines Abgeordneten des Unterhauses, der ihm bei einem vergangenen Coup zur Flucht ins Ausland verhalf. Um seine Bitte zu bekräftigen, droht er mit Entführung und Ermordung von dessen Tochter. Der Vater schaltet zum Schutz einen Privatdetektiv ein, der zusammen mit Scotland Yard nicht nur dem Kriminellen und seiner Bande auf der Spur ist, sondern es auch mit einem frauenmordenden Rasiermesserkiller zu tun bekommt.
  Nach dem spektakulären Eisenbahnüberfall im August 1963 kam Produzent Horst Wendland auf die Idee, dies in seinem nächsten Edgar Wallace-Streifen einzubauen, wodurch das Drehbuch kurzfristig umgeschrieben wurde. Das war in meinen Augen keine glückliche Entscheidung, denn die…

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  Review by Krautsalat ★★★½

  Black gloves wielding a straight razor, this Edgar Wallace joint has some serious giallo vibes. It also has an action packed climax which involves Eddi Arent blowing shit up while wearing a fake moustache.

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  Review by laird ★★★½ 2

  The fun thing about watching these Rialto Edgar Wallace movies in chronological order is pinpointing exact moments when certain motifs are born. ROOM 13, which perhaps coincidentally was released the same year as Mario Bava's BLOOD AND BLACK LACE, is the first in the series to push the barriers of (and emphasize) sex and violence. The brief scene of nudity apparently earned this movie an 18+ rating in Germany where it became the first of the Rialto productions to fail at the box office. On the violence side of things, there's a black leather glove wearing psychopath running around murdering women with a straight razor. This is mostly background to another plot thread about blackmail, a dead wife, a criminal…

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  Review by SpaghettiNoir ★★★

  Convoluted policier/heist/murder mystery featuring a razor-wielding killer, a kidnapped heiress, a mad scientist, gangsters, strippers, mannequins, and disguises. Surprised there's no ape or hooded maniac. A little slow despite all the krimi pulp, but worth it for the first and final fifteen minutes.

  
  Scotland Yard Official Underwear Noir
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  NoirVember Challenge: #19

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  Review by Mike Marsbergen ★★★★½

  A little disappointed in this one, however the final twist did make me bump the score up from a 4/5 to a 4.5/5, so there's that.

  But you have no idea how excited I'd been for ROOM 13, Harald Reinl's 1964 krimi entry. That poster was amping me up, plus the blurb sounded sleazy and intense, and I loved THE STRANGLER OF BLACKMOOR CASTLE, Reinl's previous krimi. Honestly, the blurb should be rewritten, as the serial-killer aspect is a fairly small part of the overall movie. ROOM 13 dealt more with gangsters than anything else.

  Still, it was engaging and enjoyable, and we've got Karin Dor, Fuchsberger and Eddi Arent, so bonus points for that. Eddi's bulletproof vest was hilarious.…

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  Review by COBB ★★★½

  Kriminalfilm with a nice comedic touch, moves between a group of diverse characters and is more focused on their relationships in the underworld regarding a heist than on the serial killer. Therefore, the mystery itself is not its greatest strength, but rather the constant hustle and bustle between crooks and police.
  Its lively score and nice-looking b/w cinematography give it a cool style which, together with the fast pace in the editing, makes up a diverting piece.