by Dan Tabor
Its been a long time coming, but the crowdfunded anthology by the German masters of shock cinema German Angst screened at Fantastic Fest and to be honest, like all anthologies, it is sadly a mixed bag. The film is broken up into 3 segments directed by Jörg Buttgereit, Michal Kosakowski and Andreas Marschall features 2 segments that will more than live up to your expectations of the trio and one that will make you wonder just what the hell went wrong.
The film begins with Final Girl directed by Jörg Buttgereit, who previously gave us Nekromantic, Der Todes King and Schramm; needless to say expectations for this one were pretty high. What you get, however, is a very clichéd look at your typical “young girl molested by her father, who then decides to take matters into her own hands” scenario; all while ruminating on how this experience relates to her taking care of her guinea pig. You constantly get the feeling Buttgereit may get the ball rolling possibly measuring up to fan expectations, but the narrative here just never seems to get going.
While the segment plays with some volatile subject matter, it’s how Buttgereit presents it that makes little to no sense. Given the philosophy behind the collection, the director feels comfortable with going the “less is more” route when it comes to the vengeance, cutting away from what could have been some spectacularly gory set pieces. Final Girl fails to shock or engage the viewer as the film treads a well worn path that, coupled with a blatant abuse of the tilt shift filter, almost made me want to sneak out and grab a beer. Luckily I didn’t.
Next up was easily my favorite of the three, Make a Wish by Michal Kosakowski, who was also responsible for the doc Zero Killed. This story focuses on a deaf Polish couple who, while exploring an abandoned building, come across a gang of Neo-Nazis who begin terrorizing them. The twist here is the boyfriend has an amulet that was handed down to him that will allow the user to trigger a body switch between two individuals. The girlfriend then triggers the amulet when her handicapped boyfriend is wounded, swapping him with the leader of the skinheads. What happens next is hard to watch as the boyfriend is confronted with a tough choice now that he is finally no longer the victim and now is the aggressor in the situation.
It’s that decision, along with the uncomfortable violence, that makes this the most effective of the three pieces.
Make a Wish is one of those pieces where you think you know where it’s going and it just completely goes off the rails in the best way possible. Another thing that really helped was the writing was surprisingly on point, especially one monologue given by Andreas Pape once the body swap took place which cemented this piece as the strongest of the three. Not only is the film a hard watch because of the violence, but the way the film plays with some very tough ideas as well.
Finally we have Alraune, which is the story of a man who, after splitting with his wife, ends up a member of a cult-like sex club where once you’re pledged, you’re a member for life. The gist of the club is once a week they meet up at an apartment and are taken back into a secluded hallway, blindfolded and chained to a table while all their fantasies are fulfilled. The only catch is you can never remove the blindfold to see just what is doing the pleasuring, and as soon as someone mentioned that at the rule of the establishment you get the idea where this is going.
The segment easily delivers the gory goods. But the interesting part is how it uses the plot device as a blunt metaphor for our society’s relationship with pornography and the failure of reality when compared to our now corrupted fantasies. I think that, coupled with the strong practical effects and story, led to a strong piece from Andreas Marschall that definitely fit with the overall theme of the film.
German Angst is a transgressive treat for fans of extreme cinema and honestly 2 out of 3 isn’t bad. While Final Girl faltered, Make a Wish and Alraune delivered on the promise of the anthology with the heaping portions of gore you would expect balanced with some thought provoking ideas. Hopefully based on the strengths of these offerings we will see more of both Michal Kosakowski and Andreas Marschall in the near future, since good horror is getting harder and harder to come by.