Rob and Betty are two deranged necrophiliacs who share a small flat in Berlin. Rob works for a street-cleaning agency where he cleans up dead bodies from road accidents, and takes some of those bodies home so he and his girlfriend can have a nasty threesome now and then. After one of their sex rituals, they have a fight, break up, and Betty leaves Rob alone with their cat – which he smashes in a rage and then takes a bath while he rubs the cat’s intestines over his body. He loses his mind completely, as if he already haven’t, and goes out at night chasing hookers to kill (and rape their dead bodies). And to fill out the running time, we get some bizarre and tedious artsy-fartsy avant-garde montages that doesn’t add much more than an urge to push the fast-forward button.
The trivia page on IMDb can tell us that the director, Jörg Buttgereit, never intended to be a director and Nekromantik was just a film to rebel against the German film rating system, trying to shock as many people as possible. And I’m not doubting that for one bit, since there isn’t much film-making to witness here, really. The technical aspects speaks for itself when the director has to start the commentary track by explaining that someone is pissing on a dead pigeon in the opening scene, which you can’t see due to the poor image quality. And when the director says it’s terrible, then that’s all you need to know. Most of the film takes place in a cramped, filthy apartment, shot with a Super 8 camera showing close-ups of the couple sitting and daydreaming, bathing and fucking a corpse when it gets too boring. We also get a complete random, pointless stock-footage scene where a rabbit gets skinned and slaughtered on a farm to add some cheap shock value. However, I can at least point out a certain, hysterical scene that includes a big, erected rubber dick that doesn’t look real for a second, which is the films most memorable moment, for all the wrong reasons. Even though Nekromantik is too sloppy and amateurish to be taken seriously, it quickly found its way to controversy and made its purpose by being banned in numerous countries, and has a dedicated cult-following.
To point out some qualities, the musical score by Hermann Kopp is pretty remarkable, the poster is pretty cool, and the cadaver dolls look decent enough, which took four weeks to make, and I assume that’s where the budget was spent. They also used slimy pig’s eyes to put in the corpse’s head, since they couldn’t afford to make fake eyes, which one of the actors got the honor to suck on during one of the nekro-love scenes. He could tell us that it tasted like turpentine. Yummy. John Waters is of course a big fan of Nekromantik in which he calls it “Ground-breakingly gruesome” and proclaimed it as “the first ever erotic film for necrophiliacs”. So, at the very first glance at the title and cover you should quickly know if this is your thing or not. And if you don’t get enough, there’s also a sequel, Nekromantik 2 (1991) to enjoy. And just to put the cherry on the top if you want to feel extra dirty and maybe a little nauseous, also check out the short film Aftermath (1994) by Nacho Cerdà.
Director: Jörg Buttgereit
Country & year: Germany, 1987
Actors: Bernd Daktari Lorenz, Beatrice Manowski, Harald Lundt, Collosseo, Henri Boeck, Clemens Schwender, Jörg Buttgereit
IMDb: www.imdb.com/title/tt0093608/
Kay needs to visit her old family home after receiving the message that her elderly mother Edna has gone missing. Bringing her daughter Sam with her, they both try to find clues which could help them figure out Edna’s whereabouts. Once inside the old country home, they soon find evidence all over the place regarding Edna’s increasing dementia. Post-it notes are found everywhere, with reminders of everyday things. After three days, Edna suddenly appears inside the house like nothing has ever happened, causing both tremendous relief for Kay and Sam, but also increased worry. The old lady’s behavior starts becoming more and more incomprehensible, and it feels like an ominous presence has taken control over her.
Linda inherits her mother’s Victorian mansion, located in the middle of the Australian dusty farmlands. It’s been remodeled as an retirement / nursing home, run by Connie and the doctor Barton. She’s quick to settle in, but it isn’t long before nightmares begin to haunt her, while some of the old people start to die in mysterious ways. She finds her mother’s diary that reveals one dark secret after another, and opens repressed memories. She begins to see a figure in her bedroom window, the water tap turns on by itself, the house cat begins to hunt shadows in the hallways, and candles seem to light up by themselves. One of the female nude statues in the garden has had one of her tits crushed. Much of what Linda is beginning to experience is the same thing her mother noted in her diary. Linda’s underlying paranoia skyrockets to eleven as she believes someone is tapping her phone late at night while she talks to her boyfriend, Barney, the only one she can barely trust.
Dr. Maitland is collecting esoterica, and one day the guy who is his regular source of such items offers him a skull that is supposedly the remains of Marquis de Sade. He soon discovers that the skull is possessed by an evil spirit who turns people into crazed killers.
The author Kathy Keen is on a trip in Bali, Indonesia, to do some research on an ancient black magic called Leák. She has already been to Africa where she learned about Voodoo, but she needs more material to fill her book on the subject of black magic. She gets help from a guy called Hendra, who’s got some knowledge of the local folklore, and he also soon becomes her love interest. He takes her to the obscure corners of the jungle where they meet The Queen of Leák, a crazy old witch with a cackling, screaming and over-the-top animated laugh. And it is obvious that the person who dubbed her voice had a really fun time in the recording studio. Anyway, it’s already hard to describe what’s going on here, but it’s something like this: the witch orders Catherine to take off her skirt so that the witch can tattoo something on her leg, using what looks like a long lizard tongue. If this sounds bizarre, you haven’t seen nothing yet. The tattoo is supposed to be a sign that Kathy is now an official student of Leák, and must come to her every night to learn more about this mysterious magic. And it’s straight down the rabbit-hole from here on, where Kathy and the witch dances like drunk hippies, transform themselves into pythons, flying screaming fireballs, and … pigs. You just saw that coming, right? And we get other things that include a flying head which you just have to see for yourself to believe.
Boston, 1942. The movie doesn’t waste any time and gets straight to the first body count, where a young boy is in his room minding his own business while pinning a pornographic jigsaw puzzle. In comes his strict and unhinged mother, who gives him a few slaps before she throws away that filthy thing. He then picks up an axe, which he happens to be allowed to have in his room for some reason, and chops his mother to death, before he saws off her head while he smiles, and then hides in a closet. When the cops come in, they just assume that the boy was lucky and managed to hide from the unknown killer. Little did they know..