WARNING: This Article May Contain Spoilers
This article was actually harder to write than I was expecting. A lot of the ‘German’ films I was finding turned out to be either from Switzerland or Austria not Germany. However, after trawling the internet, I was able to pull out some, let’s say obscure, German horror films…
Savage Love
At first this film made me think of Night of the Demons, a whole bunch of sex and violence. Until the women in the brothel began to turn into the living dead – then it became a little more of a b-rated From Dusk Til Dawn. In a weird way, it actually follows the same sort of storyline just these two gangsters go to the brothel on purpose instead of having to hide out there because they’re on the run. This film actually feels like an independent.
M
This film is considered in many places as being a horror but I genuinely could not see it. However, I get the feeling it isn’t meant to be a horror in the sense that there is violence but more of an emotional horror due to the fear for the children and the idea of the men in town almost being witch-hunted because they have no idea who the killer is. I wonder if part of this was trying emulate the fear that would have been felt by the German people during the time of the Nazis. I won’t deny that when the audience is shown the killer, he is a little creepy looking but that doesn’t exactly push the horror idea very far.
Schramm
I don’t know why, but I genuinely thought this film was based around a genuine German serial killer. I actually found the heavy breathing at the beginning to be a little bit unnerving. For a film that is no longer than 65 minutes it’s actually pretty disturbing and graphic. Funnily enough, while Schramm is in the taxi, he tunes the radio to a channel where they are discussing Nekromantik, a film I will be covering later in this article. There’s honestly moments in this film that have to be seen to be believed. The series of events in this film are also a little confusing.
The German Chainsaw Massacre
This film honestly wouldn’t look out of place in 1970s or 1980s American cinema but I think it would have been likely that it would have ended up on the video-nasty list. This is possibly one of the oddest films I’ve ever seen! It almost feels like a propaganda film against moving to West Germany following the fall of the Berlin Wall. Truthfully, a story like this probably wouldn’t look out of place in Rob Zombie’s portfolio as it seems to be about a family killing East Germans to make and sell sausages.
Nekromantik
I actually had to check if this film featured on the video nasties list at all because having watched some of them this definitely shows signs that it belongs on there. However it isn’t. The reason I reference this is because some of the films ended up on the list due to nothing more than animal cruelty and within the first 20 minutes of this film – you see a man butcher what looks like a live rabbit! Now, I want to say that it’s not real but honestly, looking at it, it seemed real enough to make me unsure. The only thing more disturbing is the way the film almost romanticizes necrophilia! The first time the female lead has sex with the skeleton they play piano music over the top like it’s the first time a couple has sex in a rom-com. This film is pretty weird overall but prepare yourself for the ending!
Mark of the Devil
Unlike the above, this film was considered a ‘video-nasty’. It is not noted anywhere exactly what was cut from this film before its re-release in 2015 by Arrow Films, it is just referred to as ‘heavy cuts’. The one thing I will say straight away though is that the dubbing is not great. I wouldn’t be surprised if the cut version actually begins with the writing over the flames, explaining the story you are about to see – instead of with, what looks like, the raping of nuns and the subsequent burning of two women convicted of being witches. You only see them lowered into the flames, but I guess even that can be hard for people to watch. Outside of this, and the torturing and death of Deidre Von Bergenstein, I can’t quite see exactly what else would have been cut – unless obviously the only version I have been able to get hold of is not the uncut one. It makes you wonder however, if certain scenes were meant to be longer – like the sex scene between the nobles – and whether originally it had shown that Albino rapes the woman. I’ll say this for the film though, if the version I have found is the edited one then there is a chance the scenes that were removed were not massively important to the main plot as it does not feel as if anything is missing. The only thing I don’t understand is why, just because he kills Albino, does Lord Cumberland start raping and murdering the women of the town? Was there a demon in Albino that transferred when he died?
