Falling Skies S05E03

Looks like Ben and Maggie will take the Cringe Couple Award home. The death of Sarah was both welcome and telegraphed from miles away, and I wouldn’t even complain if it hadn’t been so cringey and unneccessary. But first things first. The valley full of skitters and the skitter-like hornets didn’t pose a problem at all. Dingaan luckily invented a flying insect poison dispenser over night and a small group of fighters was able to clean out the valley within minutes. Things briefly got interesting when the population was not only back but had doubled in numbers the next day. The only conclusion was that an Overlord was nearby and genetically engineered skitters and had them gather in this valley. So far, so good. The past has shown that this shouldn’t take longer than 30 minutes, or a half in-show day to solve. Pope and Sarah went to follow the “stream of skitters” to find the source and it was physically painful to listen to the “let’s have pretty babies after the apocalypse” talk. Seriously…? Well, meanwhile, the girl and the skitterized brother that the Cringe Army had brought back from the Land of the Miracle last episode escaped and naturally, Maggie had to go after them due to a guilt trip. Wherever Maggie goes, Hal goes and wherever they go together, stupidity ensues. Not far away in a forest, they spot the elusive Overlord who saw no need at all to meet the skitter boy and his sister in a somewhat more protected location. It’s not like the Espheni are in a vulnurable position at the moment, and damn, if only there was a gathering ground for skitters and hornets in the area to provide a better defense for a single Overlord… But I guess the attempt to personally talk Skitter Boy into killing his sister for whatever reason was too important, so that’s what the Overlord tries. He also takes control of Maggie to underline the urgency of his deed, but luckily, Hal and his rifle are nearby. Any bets if Hal would think to use his rifle to take out the Overlord from a save distance? Well, nope, he runs toward him and stabs him in the back. Why? Because they need him alive, to tell the 2nd Mass where the skitters are made. And because Hal only learned to shoot a rifle yesterday, it was impossible to fire a non-lethal shot. Skitter Boy then obtains a gun and shoots his sister and then himself. Well done. Hal and Maggie return to camp with the captured Overlord.

Meanwhile, Sarah got stuck in the conveniently placed “Espheni goo” some might remember from last season. It’s like superglue! Oh my god! Fire would easily remove the goo, but Pope still hasn’t learned to make fire with all the damn wood and leaves in the forest, so he has to go back to camp to get a flamethrower. If you can count two and two together, you know from the “let’s have a picture book future” talk earlier that Sarah won’t see another morning. In the camp, Ben and Maggie have combined their spikes to get the location of the skitter factory from the Overlord. The rest of the 2nd Mass takes the only available vehicle to go destroy said factory, and Tom promises to save Sarah on the way back. Pope freaks out, takes the flamethrower and runs back into the forest. Whatever. If you had learned to make a damn fire, or picked up a lighter, you wouldn’t have this problem.

The 2nd Mass arrives at the skitter factory, which is an actual factory building full of giant barrels. Fully grown skitters and hornets emerge from those, like from an assembly line. I don’t know how far you can stretch “it’s alien tech”, but that’s not how I imagine genetic engineering. Three bombs quickly put an end to it, and now the crazy plot twist: Anthony froze up. No, this had no impact on anything. Yet. After the successful mission, Tom tries to keep his promise and save Sarah. But alas, Pope arrived there a bit earlier, flamethrowered a bunch of alien insects away and Sarah had no legs. Including the cliche “I can’t feel my legs” line. She ded nao. And Pope is pissed at Tom. Really? I mean, the entire Cringe Conga with Sarah was meant to turn Pope into… an antagonist for Tom? Isn’t that… y’know, exactly as what he started? The character was fine for 2.5 seasons, and some decent writing would have covered up the weak episodes in season 3. Now it’s a train wreck like all the others, with no hope for redemption.

Speaking of train wrecks. It appears I somehow put my money on the right horse from the start: Anthony. The last man standing. The only character left who has not turned into a parody or otherwise been made awful to watch. It took him extraordinary survival skills – with black guys dying left and right, no last name, often without notable screentime or lines for episodes – to make it this far. But there he is, alive and kicking, and with a believable plot of his own: Anthony now has PTSD, according to Ann. Therefore, he killed the Overlord, after witnessing him pick up some rocks and making them glow – which might as well be a real thing; Overlords have been doing just this to open telepathic communication with others of their kind in season 4. With the exception of Lexi, no-one has witnessed this though, and Anthony certainly seems a bit nuts to the 2nd Mass now. Which is why Weaver relieved him of duty. Comically, he only took his rifle, not the bullet belt Anthony wears since his first appearance. Noteworthy, at least to me, is the fact that a different accessory has changed owners: Anthony now also wears Pope’s skitter claw necklace. And I finally have hope to get Sheriff Anthony and Desperado Pope to team up against Mason and Weaver.

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Feed (2005)

“Feed” is one of the most stupid movies made in the past 10 years. The synopsnis somehow made me believe this was a Se7en-like thriller, but it’s too stupid to compare to Se7en. “Feed” is about the feeder-gainer fetish, something I never understood on any level, yet the only thing that somehow makes sense here. The appeal of this fetish is explained in the first 10 minutes, with the depth and enthusiasm of a wikipedia stub. After that… well.

The main character, Phil, is apparently an Australian cop whose partner is an aging surfer bro. His main task is to remind Phil that he has no authority over cases on other continents. This doesn’t stop Phil from investigating what looks like the Meiwes case in Germany, and right after that, a feeder guy in Ohio. No, Phil is not a member of an international task force or anything. He just flies to wherever his internet research leads him and “investigates”, with no involvement or even knowledge of the local police. His “police work” includes breaking into suspects’ houses, kidnapping their wives at gunpoint in a church (during service, no less) and being allround stupid.

It is hard to pinpoint the most stupid moment. A highlight reel should definitely include Phil getting a syringe full of… fat, I assume? injected into his belly, and him simply cutting it out with a pocket knife and carrying on like nothing happened. Then there’s falling into a room full of garbage, including insects and human remains, piercing his arm with a chicken bone or something, and again, being not worried, getting up and going on with the “investigation”. There are several phone calls and e-mail exchanges in front of the suspect’s wife (who, at this point, is Phil’s hostage) and over the suspect’s computer, in his house. The end of the movie belongs in this reel, too. Phil marries the suspect’s sister and keeps said suspect in a farm house full of trash, in the room with the remains of the “gainer” woman (who Phil shot), where he starves him to death.

I have no idea what this was supposed to be. Shocking because it deals with a fairly disgusting fetish (there’s less vomit involved than one would think)? Some morale about the cop being the bad guy because the woman wanted to be like that (and was shot for saying so)? Maybe a favor to a special FX designer who always wanted to make a realistic fat suit?

Famous Last Words: A waste of both calories and time.

Cell Count (2012)

Umm. I’m not sure why this movie exists.

So there’s Russell Carpenter and his dying wife Sadie. I think she has cancer or something. After the emotional introduction of this situation on her deathbed, a doctor with a – presumably – German accent tells Russell in no uncertain terms that Sadie will die in one week. Unless she joins his secret program, that can totally bring people back from death, and to prove his point, the doctor totally rips open his shirt and shows a totally convincing scar. Despite the outragous claim and little evidence, Russell immediatly agrees to not only sign up his wife, but join her, too. Russell Carpenter, as it turns out, is not a man of wise decisions.

Three weeks later, he wakes up desoriented in a sterile looking research prison, along with a bunch of other people. Bill/y aka bald guy with the tattoo, Blackhaired Girl, William the hobby photographer (or journalist?) and Delusional Timetraveller Mason. For some reason, Billy’s dog is also in the facility, in a locker room. And somewhere, two inmates who were sent to this research program; Timothy and Abraham. None of them is a very wise decision maker.

Everyone gets a mystery surgery to have “the cure” implanted, which is a crossover of a… roach or bug and a 5 foot long tapeworm. Apparently.

What stands out about all characters involved is how little they question anything. No-one looks particularly trustworthy or sane, but there are absolutely no conflicts or trust issues between them. Everyone also magically knows where to go, based on information like “that room where the dog is”, despite this being a huge facility with various corridors and security doors. At some point, the “regular” patients make contact with the inmates, whose cell doors are simply opened because why the hell not. Timothy soon pukes out a giant flesh bubble that wraps around his face. He is/goes insane and Eraserhead would have made a quite descriptive nickname. No-one has any reservations at all to trust Abraham though. Good for him, because he now reveals the truth about the “cure” being some sort of parasite. Though at least one person still has that thing inside his stomach, the group decides to escape. Now it gets a bit chaotic and I don’t know what the actual plan was supposed to be. Some people die, they kidnap the doctor and make it outside, where magically a bus with a driver (who is magically also a friend of Abraham) awaits. It is possible that Abraham, Billy and Mason all had planned to die to destroy the facility with the conventiently present C4, but they all make it to the bus anyway. Where it is revealed that they are in a quarantine zone of 100 miles that is inhabited by mutants. Then the movie is over.

Umm. It was an ok premise and had a neat (Hyper)Cube/The Experiment atmosphere at some point, but the extremly flat characters and their unexplained actions also make it… not boring, but very anti-climatic and hard to follow. I don’t expect much depth or logic from horror movies, but there are way too many things that make no sense.

Famous Last Words: Even body horror can suffer from plotholes; respect.

Serbia, revisited

104 minutes torture porn it’s truest form. I finally got to watch the uncut A Serbian Film, and I’m still impressed with the execution. Sure, it didn’t have the surprise effects anymore, but still. It is rare that I rewatch a movie so shortly after the first go, but it is hard to resist to check out the uncut version if the cut one was already so impressive. Actually, I can’t pinpoint from memory where those 8 minutes were missing. That’s a good thing, as it just tells me that the movie is, in either version, a round thing.

However, Vukmir’s monologue about victims and their power made me think. Is it true? Do victims have the power he claims? In A Serbian Film, Milos is both victim and victimizer, yet I feel nothing of his power. He is, in fact, powerless; a tool Vukmir and his men use, which puts him more on the victim side. But do I care about him? Do I feel sorry for what happens to him? No. I don’t. I see him as a tool. A choiceless machine that does what the puppet masters ask. No matter how he tries to escape or fight against it. What about his victims; Maria, Petar, the nameless women? Same here, means to an end. I also feel nothing about Vukmir, Rasa and the other victimizers.

And maybe that is exactly what I find so impressive: That I, the viewer, can just sit back and watch, without taking sides. No morals, no ethics, no common sense is forced on me; they are all victims in their own way, and victimizers at the same time. And the movie doesn’t tell me either side is good or bad. And also leaves me the option to still think that people who genuinely like Lady Gaga or Jedward are by far more dangerous than people making movies like this.

Men Behind The Sun

I’m moderately shocked – my long time memory seems to be damaged! It’s been some years that I watched Men Behind The Sun, and it was a poor quality video tape in original language with subtitles in… well, Asian letters, Chinese or Korean maybe; same for the cover and credits. But I should still remember the movie correctly, at least what happened, if not the order of events.

This was the first time I watched the English version on DVD, so both understanding of the story and the quality were a lot better, but it doesn’t explain how I remembered two scenes totally different.

For once, the surgery scene on the Chinese boy. In my memory, the boy was lured into the building with his toy ball and picked up on the corridor by the scientists. In the movie, one of the Youth Corps soldiers promises him food and hands him over to his commander

And secondly, though that might be a result of the poor quality, the women with the frozen hands. In my memory, she was on an open field, not a yard with ice walls. Probably quality; on an old tape, white is white. However, I also thought it was her real baby and not a pillow she thought was her baby – that’s a quite big difference. Even more that, in my memory, the soldiers hit her frozen hands while still outside until they shattered and then the woman remained there; while the shock frosted person in the laboratory was a man, and he was the one who got the flesh ripped off.

I’m really confused about this. Both scenes are so specific and clearly in the movie – somehow – so I don’t think I mix it up with one of the sequels. Has it really been that long that I watched any of it? Have I seen too many camp movies to keep them apart? Anyway, still a good watch; now I just need to find subbed or dubbed versions of the sequels to check if it is my memory messing with me.

Short Cuts, 2nd Take

I haven’t been too busy with movies in the last week. I had to catch up on reality shows, with the sad result: all my suspicions were confirmed. It’s really just the German version that always sucks bad, and it’s our very own fault that we will never find a real idol, talent or top model. Our winners will stay exactly that: audition show winners, regardless of their quality.

The better result of a comparison is that Europe is stronger than ever when it comes to horror movies. While the US is busy to “re-interpret” successful Asian movies, come up with more pointless sequels of movies that are far beyond their highlights or to re-make classics/commit brutal blasphemy, Europe pays no attention to this trend and has found a silent agreement to go in a different direction.

[Rec] and High Tension are no longer exceptions from the prejudice that European movies aren’t daring enough or too artsy to shock.

Martyrs is great, as to be expected. I’m at a point where I’m more surprised if a French movie sucks than if it doesn’t. Martyrs is artsy, no doubt, but it is also extremly sick and graphic, right from the start. A girl, Lucie, escapes a torture chamber, grows up in a mental hospital, only talks to her best friend – Anna, another girl who was abused by her stepfather. After 15 years of silence, Lucie returns to the family that kept her like a dog in a dark chamber – with a shotgun. I call this the ‘first act’ – Lucie kills the family, even though they seem to have changed and live a normal life with their children now, while Anna, the more stable one, loves Lucie too much to give up on her. In the end of act one, Lucie commits suicide; she still sees a hallucination of a girl she left behind on her escape; an illusion that punishes her for that and finally drives her to cut her own throat.

Act two is actually the one losing some of the tension – surprisingly, because this is the actual torture porn part. A group of people, dressed in black and acting like a militia, rush into the house and take Anna prisoner. She had discovered a secret door to an underground facility, and found the girl Lucie saw in her halluciantions. Attempting to help her, she undersetimated how disturbed someone would be after over 15 years of torture. Well, she will discover it soon enough, as Anna takes her place in the dark chamber now.

Act three, or more the revelation act, finally reveals the intentions of the mystery militia. The group is dedicated to create Martyrs, unrelated to religion, by inflicting pain and suffering, in order to reach a state of ecstasy that allows the ‘Martyr’ to see ‘the other side’. Why exactly they do it? It’s not mentioned, but it also doesn’t matter. Martyrs manages it to stay interesting, even through the quiet parts of plain torture, lacking of any dialogue or explanation, and to come up with a satisfying end.

A Serbian Film is a revelation of it’s own. Someone actually got the concept of torture porn and brought it to a new level. Milos, a retired porn star in need of money, accepts the offer of the shady artist Vukmir to appear in his new movie. He soon starts to doubt the project, but tries to go through with it while his brother Marko, a policeman, investigates Vukmir.

The movie is like a 96 minutes drug trip through the eyes of Milos, and though it uses many elements I’m usually not too fond of, I would call it a perfect execution. We have a not always chronological storytelling, but it fits the blackout moments of Milos, the time steps and backflashes when the memories are triggered. We have some cases of handcamera, but again, this just underlines the unstable drugged scenes. The ‘artsy’ scenes shot by the strange cameramen sometimes remind of the glass box scenes in Tromeo and Juliet, just a lot rawer and sicker.

In movies that intentionally go for the most extreme perversions, it can easily come out forced, constructed and stay behind expectations. We’ve seen that in movies like Hostel, Wolf Creek, Hills Run Red or the Hills Have Eyes remakes. A Serbian Film, however, fulfills these expectations and presents them in such a raw and dirty way that it feels authentic and disturbing from the first moment to the last – and can still surprise through it all.

Session 9 as the only US production I watched last week, is certainly not a bad movie, but – sorry to say – pales in comparison to the outstanding European ones. It is by far more mystery than horror, but though there are a few graphic scenes (maybe 5 minutes and not going to any extremes) it creates a wonderful atmosphere of permanent danger. Sure, there are some parts of the plot that don’t make much sense and also don’t really reveal their meaning or relevance, but overall, the spooky scenery of an abandoned mental hospital makes up for it. It’s a nice watch, though I can see how it never made the big break.

Short Cuts

Digging through movies I haven’t seen in ages/at all, I came across these in the 2nd January week.

Blood Feast II – All U can eat

The thing that bothers me most about this classic is the title. “all U can eat”. That’s l33t speak before it was trendy. But luckily, the title is really the only thing I dislike. The story is incredibly funny and gory, and though the FX can’t completely keep up with more recent movies, it is still way better than most so-called gore flicks of the past 10 years.

Bloodsucking Freaks

An all-time fave that combines so many of my fave grindhouse elements – caged women, slave trade, sideshow flair and sick torture, along with an almost stand up comic lead duo. What I don’t really get is why this movie is said to be so politically incorrect. The dwarf, for example, is not shown as a mindless idiot who obeys whatever his master Sardu says. No, he’s almost an equal partner – almost because Sardu is the director and Ralphus an actor. But still, he gets his share of fun and artistic freedom, and frequently enjoys the same luxury as his boss. Also, the caged women are almost all white, while Sardu’s dominatrix and her aide are black – that’s very open-minded for a gore flick and completely reverses the ‘token minority dies first’ trope. This movie has been a fave from the first time I’ve seen it, and it will always be.

Wrong Turn I & II

Oh man, how could I ignore them so long? Answer: I got them along with Vacancy I and II and High Tension. I found all of these boring and uninspired, so I didn’t bother to watch Wrong Turn – and then forgot. Now I gave them a chance and they immediately made it into my top list. While Wrong Turn (1) was nice and bloody and didn’t have any lengths, Wrong Turn 2 – Dead End is even better. Not just bloodier, though that certainly applies. I also just love the premise of a reality survival game show turning into the real deal. Bonus points for Henry Rollins as retired marine Dale, who is so badass, he’d technically need an identical twin brother to contain it.

Dead Snow

…made me regret yet again that I never learned any Scandinavian language, because the DVD only features the original Norwegian sound and German, both also as subs. Not really helpful. As much as I love the movie, as much am I bothered by German synchros. I would have watched it in Norwegian with English subs, if there were any. German translations always seem to lack authenticity – the voices seem wrong even if I don’t know the real actors’ voices. Still, a great movie that will always have a special place in my heart. Nazi zombies are simply better than just nazis or just zombies.

Saw II

Easily my fave of the series. Not that hard, as I only consider Saw 1 – 3 as decent and the rest as crap I only watch to rant about it. Mainly watched it because I needed to relax, voice-wise, and it was the nearest DVD I knew had English audio.

Anatomy

After (yet another) failed attempt to watch Salo – The 120 Days of Sodom, I decided to make the test: a German movie in original language. And yes, my theory confirms; the voices sound right, only synchros suck bad. To my surprise, the movie didn’t suck. I hadn’t bothered with it before because I don’t like Franka Potente, which is a reason I dislike a lot German movies. It’s sad but true – we don’t have that many decent actors. One of them was in Anatomy, by the way, Benno Fürmann.

The movie has a few lengths in the middle, but that’s not too bad. It’s actually quite entertaining and features some awesome grotesque plastinated bodies. I hadn’t expected the surgery scenes to be so explicit; kudos.

Salo – The 120 Days of Sodom

Well, I just don’t get it. It’s one of these ‘must sees’, but I can’t get through the full length. Why the hell is this movie so controversial? Why do people claim it is perverse and shocking? It’s goddamn boring! I make 1 hour at best, and then I get distracted by the first fly on the window, hunger, urgent desire to play a video game… anything, if it’s only more entertaining than this. I keep trying, just so I can say I’ve seen it, but I have a feeling I make it through the 235 minutes cut of Caligola before I ever see the rest of Salo.

Everyone can be Jigsaw for a day

…in other words, Saw 7 meets all expectations. The unlucky detail is that I expected it to suck.

The uncharismatic Jigsaw escaped the trap that the charismatic Jigsaw left his wife. And starts a new game, this time with the victim Bobby. Bobby self makes no sense at all as a character. He is a self help guru and book author who claims he’s a Jigsaw trap survivor, though he has really never been anywhere near a trap. Now, how does that work? Jigsaw is the most wanted killer, the crime scenes are the mekka of every cop in sight, and someone can just claim he survived a trap that didn’t exist?! And really no-one, especially not the cops, notice that? Nope, sorry. Doesn’t work for me at all.

Anyway, the original Jigsaw knew Bobby was lying – obviously. But how the… umm, 45th Jigsaw knew remains a mystery, and it also doesn’t matter. Bobby has to go through a game similar to Saw 3 and Saw 6, with his wife being the reward for ‘learning his lesson’. Oh, I miss the times when that lesson self was the reward… While Bobby plays, Jigsaw’s ex-wife goes into protective custody and sends a generic cop after the current Jigsaw, who once, when he was still a cop himself, saved the life of the cop hunting him now. Woohoo, who cares? No-one, including the movie.

Jigsaw is also more random than ever. The movie starts with a public triple saw blade trap of two lovers of the same greedy girl, hanging from the ceiling, getting cut in halfs. It has nothing to do with the story, but the two guys survive, so they are potential new Jigsaws for the inevitable sequels.

Early in the story, Jigsaw also kills four neo nazis on a junkyard, just because. None of them survives, so Saw 8 will still show political correct kills. Late in the movie, Jigsaw also slays an entire police station and kills all cops hunting him to then kill Jill, the ex-Jigsaw’s ex-wife. Just like the traps Bobby goes through, these kills are unoriginal and don’t have any message at all.

Bobby has to face various helpers on his way to survivor fame, like his manager, but he fails to save any of them and they die in half assed traps. When Bobby reaches the last room, where his wife is, he has to face the trap he claimed he survived in his book, yet again fails and his wife dies in basically the same trap as Obe in Saw 2. Just more pyros, but same story. Bobby then throws himself into an electric fence around the oven and dies. I think.

Jigsaw, who meanwhile killed all cops and Jill, sets his workshop on fire and leaves, just to be attacked by three people with pig masks – we haven’t seen those in a while – and finds himself in the basement from Saw 1. Guess who also got a message from the original Jigsaw, who was also a helper, and is now probably the new Jigsaw? Never mind, I tell you. It’s the guy who survived the basement. After sewing his foot off and creeping through the basement, he was healed by Jigsaw and became his helper. He is the doctor who recommended to kidnap the other doctor in Saw 3 and… really, who cares? I don’t, because it seems that really everyone who ever walked through the set was really a secret helper, ally or successor of the original Jigsaw and the next sequel will be just like the last one. Random victim, someone turns out as a helper and it’s neither surprising nor original, traps so unoriginal and meaningless that you wouldn’t learn a lesson from them if you studied them all your life, and another generic cop fails to catch whoever is Jigsaw that day.

Famous last words: It’s always sad to see a legend not die, but make a fool of itself. And that’s what the Saw series is doing proudly since at least Saw 4.

Sadisticum

Sadisticum

Less than an hour playtime. Amateur movie. German audio with nearly unreadable English subs. Sounds like shit? Hell, no! This is clearly the splatter surprise of the (last) year! The effects are outstanding and realistic like I’ve never seen it before in a low budget production – and you bet no-one with a sane mind would really invest in a movie with no chance in hell to ever reach a big audience. The actors are way above average; lighting, cut, camera and sound effects, too.

So, what is Sadisticum about? A sadist. Not that hard to guess. At the age of 17, our narrator more or less accidentally kills a classmate and experiences yet unknown satisfaction and pride from this act. For many years, he surpresses the urge to kill and torture, but 30 years after his first crime, he gets robbed on the way home. Feeling the blood on his head and being reminded of the situation at school, the urge to kill arises and he breaks out his normal life.

He prepares to live his dream – to kill and torture for an audience that will appreciate his passionate work. It results in “torture workshops” and these scenes are so intense, Eli Roth would blush and deny he has anything to do with Hostel. The nameless killer appears like the competent guy from a Tool Time show when he explains his students how to cause the most pain with the smallest work, with and without tools, how to keep a victim concious, how to make the torture last as long as possible. He’s friendly, smart, patient and skilled – a passionate teacher of perversion.

Obviously, the kills don’t stay a secret and the police starts to investigate. And this leads to the one thing that annoyed me. It is – at least in the east of Germany – not uncommon to meet people with English first names. In the DDR, parents gave their children American names as a pocket size protest against the communist government. So nothing wrong with the main investigator’s name being Steven. (Though I don’t see why it can’t be Stefan. I assume that the movie was made with the intention to be synchronized; the intro and outro are written in English, too. That counts as an excuse.) But that his name, Steven, is spoken out in every damn sentence said to Steven in every damn conversation with Steven, that really gets annoying, Steven. Alright, its also annoying that his wife’s name, Alina, is used in the same way. In some scenes, you think you hear nothing but Steven-Alina-Steven-Steven-Alina-Steven. The other thing I found a bit unlucky – its only about 57 minutes. I would have liked another hour – its really a very entertaining and well done movie with a relatively surprising end.

Famous last words: More movies like this, please!

 

Schramm

Schramm

For years, I only knew the preview trailers from other DVDs and always wanted to watch it. I wish I had kept it that way. The duo Jellinski and Buttgereit (Nekromantik) is responsible for this German amateur movie and I really wanna know what the hell they were thinking. I mean, Nekromantik is a cult movie, no doubt. There are millions of better and less boring movies, sure, but only few with a more controverse reputation. Nekromantik 2 is in my top 10 “most boring movies of all times”. Schramm – I don’t even know what charts I’d have to open for that. It’s the kind of movie you keep on watching because you hope it will make sense at some point. Well, it doesn’t.

We follow Lothar Schramm, a taxi driver, through his every day life. He seems to like running/marathons, rubber torsos, killing and cognac. And he has a crush on his professional neighbor Marianne. The rubber torso and the sounds her customers make are also a notable combination, you don’t need an AP to know what I’m saying here. Schramm also has badass hallucinations, resulting in not-so-badly-done rubber monster effects, mutilation fantasies and kinda senseless time jumps and flashbacks. Adding to this, the entire movie – around 66 minutes uncut – lives from the pictures; from extreme gore visuals to surreal dream sequences. In short – there are maybe 30 lines of text in total.

Its asked too much from me what the plot really is. There is a plot, but not really. Things that happen (the when, why and where aren’t defined) are: Schramm kills two people we all wanna kill. Jesus Army ringing your door to “talk about god if you have 15 minutes” and then trying to sell you a 65 bucks bible. Schramm gives his neighbor a ride to a strange job in a villa outside the town, waits in the taxi and brings her home. He goes for diner with her, later they have cognac in his place, he gives her sleeping pills and takes dirty pics of her in underwear. Schramm has millions of hallucinations, including several moments when he sees himself mutilated in some way (leg gone, teethy monster mouth in his forehead, castration, dentist pulls teeth and eyeball,…).

Notes:

1. Dear special FX designers! If you show a real eye in close up right before a pull eyeball out scene, do me the favour and make the rubber eye the right color. Like in: actor has green eyes, why use a brown rubber eye?!

2. The one thing you wish when watching Schramm is: LESS nudity. Especially LESS FRONTAL MALE NUDITY. Or at least less gorilla-like body hair. Or an actor that is a tiny little bit attractive. Maybe no shapeless blob bodyshape. Maybe no Jean-Luc Picard memorial hairdo. Maybe simply ANYONE else.

3. There is only one scene that makes a guy scream harder than the syringe scene from Dellamorte Dellamore. And this scene is in Schramm, involves a hammer, nails, a table, and male restricted content. You get the idea.

4. A surreal dream sequence should never involve the devil or Jesus because it always looks silly. In Schramm, its Jesus.

5. If you wanna learn German and start easy, this is the movie for you. The subtitles cut the 30 lines (that don’t make much sense and add like nothing to the story) to maybe 15 lines and its really really easy to follow.

Would I recommend you to watch this movie? Yeah. If you have nothing to do. If you have no better movies. If you wanna know how Berlin looked in 1993. If you wanna see some real disgusting german food in a restaurant. If you are into overweight males with more bodyhair than King Kong, but way less hair on the head. If you wanna make your uninvited guests leave. If you wanna challenge yourself intellectually after 12 beers. If you can deal with a senseless visual drug trip in exchange for some real well done FX and the historic “I nail my own buddy to the table” scene. Then I do recommend it. If none of this applies… Well, watch something from Andreas Schnaas.