Angst (1983)

Angst is an Austrian movie, made in the glorious year of my birth. We follow .... ....., a guy who has been living 14 years of his life in prison - first for attempted murder of his mother, then for a random old woman he killed. He narrates his story to us.

This movie is so essentially Austrian that I only want to mention it once. This movie breathes Austria.




Our protagonist informs us that he plans to kill again - and again and again. His plan consists of visiting the first café that's open to look for a human.




Camera, editing, sound and acting combine to create a tense atmosphere. Our protagonist - our killer - needs to act out his fantasies after 10 years in prison. After a failed attempt to kill a female taxi driver (she reminds him of his first girlfriend...), he gets out of the taxi, slightly disoriented, and runs through the wooden area. He does not know where he is, how long he was running or into which direction. Aimlessly, he walks on.

...until he chances upon an apparently empty, deserted house surrounded by a park with a small wood and a lake. Ideal - no neighbours anywhere, big, isolated... our protagonist breaks a window and enters the house.

He is full of nervous, greedy tension, and informs us that he cannot take it much longer without... without. He is afraid - in a state which ruled out any logic. He is afraid of himself. Thoughts of his grandmother and his early childhood fear of being alone in a dark room. Haunted and tense, he wanders through the house... and then he sees the white car approaching. The inhabitants.




His plan will work. This place is perfect.

What follows is the spiraling down of our protagonist's rational thought into disorder and fear, the events spiraling out of conscious control. His thoughts scatter, drift back to his childhoods. His mother tried to kill him. He explains it to us in the same way he explains to us that he hadn't been wanted by his mother, as she would have preferred a girl. Growing up with his grandmother, who was very religious, he was sent to a monastery. They also kept animals there, and he used to go there and cut one of the animals - a pig - until it bled and screamed. After that, he'd had to leave the monastery. His mother then told him that his family had to be afraid of him. Fear. Abuse had followed, in order to discipline him.




All the while, he is pacing around frantically through the house, searching for his victims. He needs to find them. Needs to kill them. Both of the still living victims are incapacitated in some way... so it's not that difficult to find them. But still, nothing went as he had imagined it. He wanted it to be ...more dramatic.

The plan goes haywire. One of the victims, the old woman, appears to be unconscious, and he needs her to be conscious. He wants to see her suffer. Semi-freeing the daughter, he crawls off with her to the kitchen to find the medication for the old woman. Indiscriminately, he feeds her pills, for she still needs to whimper and cry before him - she cannot die just like that. But she's dead.

Rage.

And then... cold again. Now, only the girl is left.

But this death also doesn't go as planned, and frustration consumes him - his urges are still unfulfilled. No torture. No pain. Everything went too fast, had been too much out of his control.

And then... well, then things spiral even more out of control.




The camera is always well done - nothing special, a bit minimalistic, but good at capturing the mood of an Austrian city and Austrian, uhm, woods. Some of the shots are more than just good and help to add a frantic, surreal atmosphere to the movie, as befits a flick about a serial killer spiraling out of control. There is no logic to his psychotic needs anymore - where before there was cold planning, there now is hectic, frantic, impulsive rage and delusion.

Killer-wise, we get treated to some light necrophilia (if we can call it that) and the spectrum of manic episodes in a disordered serial killer after his first kills in 10 years.

I congratulate Erwin Leder for his portrayal of the psychopath. It's a good performance that shows us one of the myriad faces of mental disease. He really is perfect for the role - whilst watching Angst, you can literally see Leder grow into the role more and more the more demented our protagonist becomes.




He is, as an actor, delving into the midst of psychotic, fragmented thought - the thought-pattern that has come to dominate our killer's psyche. Wide shots accompany him as he hurries to the car, showing us the bleak Austrian landscape of autumn. That specific Austrian feeling. Funny Games (the original, not the remake) had some of that atmosphere as well, but nowhere near as completely and markedly as Kargl's Angst.




Déja vù.

A brilliant movie. I personally can only recommend it.



10/10 unstable serial killers who never experienced their mother's love.

Lucker the Necrophagous [Director's Cut] (1986)

John Lucker is a murderer, rapist and necrophiliac. Eight years ago, he went on a rampage, during which he killed eight girls with whom he had... uhm... sexual intercourse afterwards (like, two weeks afterwards). He was caught, and transferred to a mental asylum after he tried to kill himself. Due to practically nonexistant security, he manages to flee the asylum. When he finds out that one of his victims of eight years ago managed to survive, he is determined to find her and finish the job. He spirals out of control, as his urges and violent needs become more intense... on a mission.

I don't know what to say, as I have a distinct set of ambivalent feelings when it comes to this movie - mixed, even. Let me tell you why.



First of all, I want to say a word (or maybe a few) about the dialogues. Why the dialogues, cyn, and not the camerawork, or the terrible VHS to DVD transfer? Because, my dear reader, it's the first thing you will notice.

Seriously: It makes you go insane. It's not just that they are abysmally bad, at the same time, they are like some sort of drill that mercilessly works its way into your mind, never ceasing with the pain, never ceasing to make it hurt in new ways.

Insane. Luckily, there isn't a lot of it - most of the people who actually do the talking are not Lucker (more on that later), usually A) nurse (singular), B) nurses (plural), C) radio, D) random living person, possibly to be killed throughout the course of the movie (the probability to be killed in this movie rises if the person in question is female). Lucker? Oh, right. Lucker. Yeah, he does talk. Once or twice. And no, I won't give away what he's going to say, because it's actually sort of...important... to the ...plot. Note my hesitation there. The one before "plot".

You see, the thing with the plot is this:

Originally, the film was much longer, but due to the negatives being destroyed, it has been difficult for director Johan Vandewoestijne to scrounge together the original for a release. Before, the plot was different, with a journalist investigating the main character, John Lucker, before his rampage in the current release. The journalist becomes intrigued by Lucker, and seeks to take up his mantle. Lucker discovers this, kills the journalist, and continues his rampage.

(Courtesy of imdb.com, as usual when I can make you fall into astonished silence with my insights and knowledge of the movies I watch...)

Now that's what I call a cast. "Girl in jogging"?

Now... VHS to DVD. The sound doesn't work out properly (it happens more than just once... or twice... or 14 times...), so you hear people screaming when they're already dead, or clearly see the lips of the actors moving out of sync to what they are actually saying.
Then there's the transfer of the movie. A lot of... black. The editing isn't too good (I am being kind here), and those annoying black screens will go on your nerves as well if you're anything like me. And trust me, I'm a PATIENT movie addict. Technical problems, a bad transfer, lousy sound... usually, those things don't take away my enjoyment of a movie. In the case of Lucker the Necrophagous, these things unfortunately do (take away my enjoyment of the flick I'm watching). It's just too much in order to be able to ignore it.

And then there's the soundtrack. Oh my Gods, the soundtrack.

I watched this together with TF, and we both came to the same conclusion: Someone had gotten a CASIO home piano for christmas, happened to be a friend of the director and desperately wanted to try out his awesome new fun piano. I swear, you can hear it. I had one of those things (and a bigger one a few years later), and I know how addicting it can be to try out those fascinating special effects and sounds. I was there, man, I was there...

Now, the stuff I've said as of yet doesn't make this movie out to be more than a cheap, dirty flick. But it is. Oh yes, it is more than just a cheap, dirty flick. It provides endless amusement to people who like gory, realistic nasty movies (think of the infamous Video Nasties) and are not bothered by icky stuff, slimy stuff (I've said it once, I'll say it again - movies need more slimy stuff), sex with corpses, violence or misogyny. Then again, people who STILL read my reviews probably don't have a problem with that, although their mileage may vary. I know people who have no problem watching a zombie devour someone alive, and those same people will react with disgust when they see a long drawn-out death scene in a movie about... a necrophiliac serial killer.

I approve of the death scenes. They are awesome. Long, slow, painful to watch and hear (for the victim, or people who are less desensitised to violence than me). I like that.

I also like the grimy feeling of the movie. Here, there's nothing pretty. This movie doesn't need pretty. All it cares for is delivering Lucker's way to us, the viewers.

One scene that I especially liked was the actual necrophilia scene. Delicious. He fucks a hooker four (!) weeks after he killed her. Man, that girl is one juicy bit. Full decomposition. Maggots are crawling underneath her foul skin, she's more liquid than solid (I just say "licking scene" - you'll know what I mean when you see it) - I fully approve. I also fully approve of said licking scene. Lucker, Lucker, Lucker... you're not just one lucky motherfucker (see what I did there?!) to have a dame like this to mount, you're also so going down the path to becoming a ghoul*...

Okay, I'm going to skip forward now. It does not become a lady of my age and social stature to... watch this particular scene all too often (and on a sidenote - I could have done with less man-beef and more corpse).

Back to the main protagonist: Lucker.
Brilliant dialogues. "Uh", "Ah", "Oh", "Uuuuuh", sometimes I even detect the hint of an "Ugh". He speaks one or two times throughout the whole movie. But this does not deter from what I like to call his charme and him being full of win. Because, to make a really long story short: Lucker is cool. I like Lucker. I mean, how can you NOT find a necrophiliac, psychotic serial killer with serious communication problems likeable?

After 45 minutes, the movie really clocks in and we get more. More of what, you ask? Well, more of everything. Coolness, mostly. And some light torture and psychological terror (but only light - then again, my definition of "light" may be a tad different from yours).

Enjoyable flick. If you're looking for some movie about necrophilia - I personally prefer Lucker to Nekromantik (1 and 2). Or maybe I just like watching helpless women scream and moan and beg, who knows. *shrugs*

You're warned: Not light fare. But adorable. The only way this could have become more enjoyable would have been a skullfuck. But alas, you can't have everything.


7/10 decomposed heads being forced into the face of a screaming, tied up woman.


P.S.: The final piece of dialogue will either melt your brain, or make you laugh out loud. Just a hint:


...and I invite you to play the game of "Come Up With A Different, Witty Ending Dialogue To Lucker the Necrophagous" as well. Trust me. You will anyways. It's impossible not to do it.



* Leichengifte!

Fear Itself (TV) - "In Sickness and in Health" (2008)

Aaaaand yet another "Fear Itself" episode on this very blog of mine, just for your enjoyment and definitely not because I just wanted to watch something short enough whilst devouring my deer steak. Yes. Deer steak.
Delicious stuff, trust me. Cut in even more delicious and appealing 4 cm slabs of fresh, raw meat, acquainted with the frying pan for 20 seconds each side, voilá - deer steak á la cyn. Not recommended if you're vegetarian, vegan or not fond of pretty much raw meat. Alternatively, I could be rude and say that only pussies like their steak well done and shy away from my version of the ultimate meat, but that would indeed be rude of me. And you all know that I'm not a rude person, I just sometimes give the impression of being a tad rude. But I'm not. Hence me not stating the above, and acknowledging that people can like different things than I do and still qualify as people. I would go as far as to state that I even might be found sharing a beer or two with people who like their steak a bit more dead than I like mine. See, that's how considerate I am.

Pointless babbling aside...

In Sickness and in Health takes a very simple premise and runs with it: What if, on the day of your wedding, you receive a note.

This note.

Directed by John Landis (An American Werewolf in London, Showtime's Deer Woman and Family, as well as Jacko's "Thriller" video), this episode of "Fear Itself" shows what the guy can do. One thing that immediately literally jumps into your eye is how he uses the statues of saints, Jesus, the virgin Mary etc. to an eerie effect. And I mean "eerie" when I say it. Not just statues - murals, paintings, windows, statues... I never noticed how creepy those things look, given the right circumstances. Landis definitely manages to come up with circumstancial shots that make those things the perfect prop for a horror story.

Back to the story of In Sickness and In Health.

The joys of marriage...

Suspicions run wild, everyone is sort of acting in a weird way. What do the two bride's maids know? Is there a reason for the decidedly strange way they're acting in? What is the problem with the husband's best man? Is he in onto something? Why does the uncle of the husband (Carlos - the husband, not the uncle; the uncle is called Bob) seem to be afraid of his nephew? Why are Bob and his twin brother smiling in that weird way? What happened at the wedding of Carlos' parents?

And: What's the problem with the husband and the wife?

One problem with this episode of "Fear Itself" is that... well, some things are hard to believe. For example, the idea that a bride to be has a motivation that consists of "A totally random stranger gave a friend of mine a note about my future husband that said that he is a serial killer and I am totally scared now!!!" just doesn't really work with me. Maybe that's just me being me, but... sorry, nope, doesn't work like that.

However, that problem is resolved in the end. I won't tell you what happens, because, you know, I don't want to spoil too much, but... twist! Yes, tremble in fear as another twist lodges itself in the realm of horror. No, seriously, it's not that bad. A bit... well, it's a twist. There are good twists, bad twists, and twists that just exist without actually being either a good or a bad twists. They just are. The twist in In Sickness and In Health is one of those. However, the good thing about this twist is that you see some of the dialogues and effects in a totally new light after it (I should know, I am watching this thing for the second time as of the very writing of this very review, as in, I'm typing and watch the stuff).

The acting in general is very good - both the two main actors and the supporting cast (although the story is carried by the protagonists and their interaction, to be frank). Something that I also liked about this episode was that it all takes place over the course of one evening, in one location. Simple. I don't want to have to think about layers of meaning and all that stuff whilst eating a steak. Pacing and light are also effective, so nothing to complain in this department. Sure, this episode is not that great - you won't find me singing its praises on the intarwebs or to strangers and/or friends at parties, but still. Solid, nice little thing.

Although I could have done without the twist, honestly. But alas... *sighs*


A neutral 5/10. I can't get enthusiastic over this one, as much as I try.

Ed Gein: The Butcher of Plainfield (2007)

I really recommend watching movies without sound. Or, in my case, without a proper soundcard. All the dialogue (or monologue, I can't tell) is the same (like static, only immensely more annoying), and if you turn it off and instead put in your favourite album, you can listen to great music and study people's faces. I swear, you notice much more about the acting that way. MUCH MORE.
*shivers at the thought of Basket Case*

Anyways, I am bored, don't want to work and need to ignore a certain beast that tries to gnaw all flesh off my hands for some reason. Hence I decided to sit through "Ed Gein: The Butcher of Plainfield", together with a few beers and music running.

Alright fiends, there we go.

I originally got this movie because I was intrigued by the prospect of Kane Hodder (of Jason Voorhees fame) playing the American Ghoul.

Kane Hodder really isn't the kind of guy you'd expect to play Ed Gein.
Let's face it, we all know Gein from the pictures, we all know the story of his trial and his psychological background. We have seen him - or one of the figures based on him - portrayed by various other actors, some more talented, some less. But Kane Hodder? Come on, you've got to be joking.

However, Hodder is surprisingly good. In my opinion, it's his portrayal of Gein which really carries this film. He has an outstanding presence in this movie - I was, frankly, amazed.

This Gein is... Let me put it this way: Kane Hodder plays intense. His eyes and hands alone manage to make him creepy - in a silent way. I can't even hear him, but the line of his jaw and his eyes and how he carries himself really convey the character wonderfully.
Seriously, he gets away from the Jason Voorhees stereotype I for one have associated him with ever since... well, Friday the 13th VII (Was it VII? I think so...).

In my opinion, this is the best "Gein" performance I've ever seen. One second, you see his eyes light up and what I suppose to have been a smile when he looks at a picture (supposedly his mother's), and then in a split second this changes to murderous rage that you can literally feel oozing from the screen.

And that is a point that doesn't appear to sit well with a lot of people.
Gein wasn't murderous. Gein wasn't a serial killer. Gein was... well, the North American Ghoul, sadly oppressed by his domineering mother. I could never really get to grips with Gein being listed as a serial killer, but hey, if someone is weird, then of course, just list him as a serial killer. Yes, I am looking at YOU, crimelibrary.com.

Anyways, I enjoyed the movie. If I want to know the true story of Ed Gein, I'm getting a book and a few articles and read those. I already know Gein's story, and I am arrogant enough to assume that I can get a better view of the real-life person by reading what he said in court, by reading the details of what he did than by watching a movie based on him.

And this is exactly what this movie is: It is based on Ed Gein, but it is not a faithful "reproduction" of what happened. I took it as a movie independent of the original, true story, and I guess that is what it is supposed to be. Frankly... "Ed Gein: The Butcher of Plainfield" has a lot going for it - a Gein that is intimidating and has difficulties controlling his impulses, flashbacks... Kane Hodder really creates the character anew.

Purists of historical accuracy may rant and rave that this isn't how Gein was - but did anyone for even a split second assume that Hodder would play the Gein we all know? I didn't. And I wasn't disappointed - this isn't the Ghoul from Plainfield. This is Kane Hodder in a really great role that is based on the actions of said Ghoul from Plainfield. That's why it's called "The Butcher of Plainfield". Note the word "BUTCHER". Long story short, this is, in my opinion, an awesome character.

Well, what else? I really enjoyed the inside of Gein's (or should I say "Hodder's"?) house. It was slightly oppressive, as if the presence of his dead mother was still lingering there. The lighting and choice of colours was also very good, I thoroughly enjoyed how these elements were subtly used to differentiate between the colourful, nice world of the small town Plainfield and the dimly lit world of Ed. The scenes set at the cemetary also look atmospheric.
Camera and editing also were enjoyable, I was especially fond of the camerawork. And by that I mean that I have at least one page worth of notes pertaining to it. However, I will spare you the details.

Another thing that I really enjoyed about this movie were the props. It looks very much like 1957 USA. I know, it should be normal that movies set in a different time should have appropriate equipment and props, but all too often, that just doesn't happen. As of this first watching, I could spot no inconsistencies.

Also, just one word: Woman Suit. Damn, that was two words... well, occasionally I am allowed such slips of the tongue. Or keyboard, whatever.
Anyways, I never thought I would actually enjoy seeing a Woman Suit. Needless to say, I did enjoy it. A lot.

That is pretty much the positive things I have to say about "Ed Gein: The Butcher of Plainfield".

The problems?

The gore. There is hardly any. I don't know if that is just my personal problem, but... I would have wished for more. Especially since the movie starts with a good pacing - 17 minutes into the film, we already had a woman hanging on a Gein Configuration (*drools*), graverobbing, two short glances (very tasteful, in my opinion!) of Gein's decorating skills, and one short-lived sidekick being hit repeatedly with a shovel and tied to a car (3 minutes later, the short-lived sidekick is a pleasantly bloody sidekick). I was positively excited and, of course, wished for more. Waited for more.

Once, we get treated to a bit more blood (after all, you have to prepare the human body before you can properly skin it), nicely done, but... it's not a lot. And, frankly, this movie could easily have done with more. The R rating could easily have been reached with a bit more. Not that I would ever agree with the MPAA on anything...

The blood looks more realistic than I am used to with the horror movies I usually watch. It looks satisfying enough, but could be a tad darker and... well. Dried blood does NOT look like syrup with red food colouring. Point. However, it could have been worse. Much worse. So, I'm not going to bitch about that.

However, I will bitch about the actors besides Hodder.

As I already mentioned, his performance is what really makes this movie (or rather the first half of it, but more on that later) a small gem. Wherever they got that blonde ...creature (Adrienne Frantz) and the annoying woman (Priscilla Barnes) from, they should have given them back. Maybe it was intention to make those two as artificial and terrible as possible, but damn, if it was, they did a wonderful job and easily outshone Hodder.

Let me dwell on Priscilla Barnes only for a moment. Her grin/smile made me sick, and the only thing I remembered her for was playing the equally annoying woman in "The Devil's Rejects".

Adrienne Frantz, however... Well, she is actually pretty. As long as she keeps her mouth shut, doesn't talk, doesn't smile, doesn't laugh or ANYTHING. She reminds me of that dumbass blonde Billie Piper which played the Doctor's companion in the 2005 and 2006 series of "Doctor Who". Whom I regularly wanted to slaughter in painful ways (Piper, not the Dr).
Miss Frantz evokes the same feelings in me. Let me give you the possibiliy to read some of my original notes:

"The blonde grinning girl that makes me want to skin her alive is terrible.
19 minutes, and I already want to kill her. AGAIN. Possibly the only annoying person in the cast. Yet.
41 minutes, and I once again want to rip her face off. Yepp, definitely. Repeatedly. With a spoon.
47 minutes: Cut open her face. Please, movie, cut open her face, remove her lips. She's better off as a fleshless skull anyways.
51 minutes: Those teeth.... they really need to be smashed out of her terrible, terrible mouth.
55 minutes: Annoying Blondie should be unconscious and bruised more often, makes her look good. Please die, bitch. NOW. Pleeeaaaase... or, even better, become part of the Woman Suit."

Maybe it's because I'm sober, but holy crap, that face annoyed me to no end. Seriously. A lot.

Well, now here we come to the point that makes the movie that began so promisingly into... uhm... a slow movie without Kane Hodder.

The movie is 1:25:30 long (at least that's where the credits start rolling). Any action and gore and actual storyline that started the very second the movie did is... gone? Forgotten? I don't know where it is, but it's not on the screen. After the 55th minute. We get treated to one (1) little bit of light gore that lasts for only a few seconds, and... well. That's it. No more Ed Gein/Kane Hodder for us anymore. What do we get instead?

Police.

A bunch of policemen running around, looking at each other, holding rousing speeches, driving cars, talking to other people, talking to each other... oh, and did I forget Emo Policeman? He's supposed to be our hero.

In short - there are too many policemen around. As mentioned above, I can't hear anything at the moment, so the interesting dialogues are lost on me. But holy crap, not even dialogues can make scenes like what we are forced to watch any more interesting. Yes, we got it that Emo Policeman is sad. Thank you movie, you can show us something else than the same guy talking to the same thing for 2 minutes. Thank you. CUT, DAMN IT!

85 minutes long, and you start getting bored after the 55th minute. That. Is. Not. Good. Especially since, at least in my experience, people who watch serial killer movies (or Ed Gein movies) usually know what happened and happens. So... when you call a movie "Ed Gein: The Butcher of Plainfield", you have only so many possibilities to end it. And we all know how it ended. Dragging that out for an eternity is not what should have been done.

This movie could easily have been about 20 minutes shorter. Michael Feifer could just have cut out most of the police-scenes (seriously... about 40 minutes are nothing but POLICE RUNNING AROUND!), cut out some of the monologues/dialogues and close-ups of policemen (I can't imagine that they add ANYTHING to the plot), added a bit more gore. Also, he could have given us more of More Kane Hodder, he's suspiciously absent after the 55th minute...
Less policemen would have been better. And more details of the inside of Gein's house - this way, we only can let our imagination run wild with the... four? five? times in which you see a short, fleeting glance at the interior.

Let me end this review with two things I wrote down during one particular scene:


"Hodder: Looks threatening with a shovel."

"Hodder: IS threatening with a shovel!"


6/10 because of Kane Hodder giving an intense performance. And JUST because of him.

_________________________
Update after getting a soundcard (the 3rd this year):

I hate the voice of the blonde cunt. I hate her stupid words - "you always have my heart!", and her fucking giggling makes me want to hurt her badly.

Hodder's voice carries the subtle threat of a deranged psycho who is willing to use violence, even when speaking a simple sentence. THe graveyard scene is ...amazing.

And the flashbacks are intense... creepy and intense. The sound REALLY adds to them.

Still, the rating remains the same. I'm sorry, Mr. Hodder, not even your performance could make me ignore the second movie within this film - "CSI: Plainfield".

I would actually lower the rating after watching it with the abysmal dialogues that dominate every scene that does not feature Hodder. I only keep the original 6/10 because I admire his performance. The rest.... do yourself a favour and stop watching at about minute 55 - if you can make it till there.

It could have been a gem.