"Der Hund von Blackwood Castle" or "The Monster of Blackwood Castle" is a German color movie from almost 50 years ago. It is another addition to the long series of German films that were based on Edgar Wallace novels that were made in the 1960s and 1970s. The director is Alfred Vohrer, like so many other times and the film runs for roughly 88 minutes and is thus slightly longer than they are in average. German movie fanatics may be familiar with actors Heinz Drache, Karin Baal and especially Horst "Derrick" Tappert, who seems to be on the other side of the law in here? Or is he really? The film is once again from start to finish packed with plot twists about who the bad guy is and who is good. And this time not even the one listed first in the cast, which is usually the cop investigating the crimes, is left untouched, which shows how these films really do not take themselves seriously at all. The title includes the antagonist once again, even if the dog is obviously not killing everybody on his own because he wants to. There is a man behind these killings, which should surprise nobody. The dog murder scenes seem fairly ridiculous occasionally, especially the very first one, but the snake poison at least makes it slightly credible I guess. But I would have expected the dog to really brutally mutilate the victims, but oh well.. this would have been too much for the films I guess. All in all, this was a fairly absurd film and I did not find the dramatic/horror contents too credible or too interesting, so i was glad the film did end before the 90-minute mark. I give it a thumbs-down.
