Violent Shit 4: Karl the Butcher vs Axe (2010)

Violent Shit 4: Karl the Butcher vs AxeLess Violence – more Shit.

 

Karl the Butcher has been dead for 25 years, and now spends his time in Hell, chained to a chair in a dark room. He gets a message from Satan that he has to go back to Earth to kill a new potential Butcher (known as Axe). “Make a wish”, Satan says. Karl wants his mask back. A naked blond chick gives him his mask whom he then rips the head off, before he resurrects on the surface. Of course, what else did you expect?

 

It’s now the year 2023 and world has become an apocalyptic wasteland which has been split into gang communities. Among them, we get the pleasure to meet the female trinity gang led by the complete unfunny nutcase Queen Scara, who captures and ties up men, attaches their dick to a tube connected to a “sperminator” that drains them from sperm (of course) which Scara drinks while she gives the worst and obnoxious performances I have probably ever seen from a woman. It’s actually so bad in the most painfully cringy way possible that the witch from Troll 2 is Oscar worthy in comparison. The two other ladies, and rest of the cast for that matter are just as awful, but Scara really sticks out, and this trinity gang has a lot of unnecessary screen time with scenes that really drags on and on. I didn’t even chuckle once, and it’s obvious that they act bad on purpose. It looks like something you would see on a bad unintentionally unfunny YouTube film/skit.

 

Where was I… as soon as Karl the Butcher (played by Andreas Schnaas as usual) emerges to planet Earth, he wastes no time to hunt for Axe and other victims. He kills a random naked chick with some really big, solid boobies before he enters one of the gang communities. The word that Karl the Butcher is back from Hell spreads fast, and the female trinity and some other gangs comes to hunt him down. And yeah, who’s this Axe person, you may ask. He’s just some dude who lives with his lady in the woods (played by co-director Timo Rose). He also wears a mask and has a funny-looking axe which looks like a cheap Halloween prop from some Walmart discount bin, and there’s nothing interesting about him. When he finally stumbles upon Karl, the whole premise takes an unexpected turn when The Butcher and Axe rather decides to team up and become buddies, when they realize that the gangs is out to kill them both.

 

It took two long decades before Andreas Schnaas finally gave us the not-so long anticipated Violent Shit 4: Karl The Butcher vs Axe, co-written and co-directed with Timo Rose. And I have to say I was a bit curios to see what two directors would come up with in the so far final chapter in the Violent Shit series. And it still looks like shit, as it’s probably meant to be, with overall inept directing, and still amateur hour all way through. The biggest sin here is that it’s mostly boring. It’s also the least violent of them all where it’s too far between the killing scenes, or the Violent Shit, if you will. Instead we get less Violence and more Shit with yawn-inducing and terribly written dialogue scenes where the “actors” seem to be bored out of their minds.

 

The film isn’t completely hopeless, though. It has it’s Snchnaas trademark moments with limbs getting ripped apart, static close-ups of beheading, castrations, bad choreographed fighting scenes with goofy, cartoonish sound effects, and of course some fresh nudity. It’s nothing new to see, but better than nothing, I guess. The final act is the most entertaining part with gunfights, silly video game-style fights, and of course when Karl the Butcher drinks some green liquid and becomes the Super Butcher, just like Super Shredder from Turtles 2. And his jacket-up bicep-costume looks something like this. Yes, really.

 

And of you still haven’t gotten enough Violent Shit and the murderous adventures of Karl the Butcher, there actually exists an Italian remake from 2015 of the first film, called Violent Shit: The Movie.

 

Violent Shit 4: Karl the Butcher vs Axe is available on DVD from Synapse Films.

 

Violent Shit 4: Karl The Butcher vs Axe Violent Shit 4: Karl The Butcher vs Axe Violent Shit 4: Karl The Butcher vs Axe

 

Directors: Timo Rose, Andreas Schnaas
Country & year: Germany, 2010
Actors: Andreas Schnaas, Timo Rose, Magdalèna Kalley, Eileen Daly, Eleanor James, Marysia Kay, Marc Rohnstock, Mario Zimmerschitt, Marc Trinkhaus, Timo Fuchs
IMDb: www.imdb.com/title/tt1517076/

 

Prequels:
Violent Shit III: Infantry of Doom (1999)
Violent Shit II (1992)
Violent Shit (1989)

 

Tom Ghoul

 

 

 

 

Violent Shit II (1992)

Violent Shit IIWe are in an open field somewhere at the countryside, where a drug deal between two gangs is about to take place, which quickly goes terribly wrong and ends up in some ridiculous martial-art fight scenes. Suddenly another threatening figure with an iron mask appears on the horizon, and finishes the whole match by cutting the throat of the last man standing with a machete, before he breaks the fourth wall by introducing himself with a guttural voice in the most beautiful German: Du Warst Gut! Aber Ich Bin Besser! ICH BIN KARL THE BUTCHER JUNIOR!!!

 

Then the  opening credit sequence rolls with some heavy metal tunes with vocals performed by the director himself, Andreas Schnaas, as we see clips from the first film which gives a clear prediction that you should expect much of the same (violent) shit.

 

After the opening scene, the movie switches to some unexpected, and out-of-place documentary-ish mode in Hamburg, where journalist Paul Glas investigates a variety of brutal murders that is out “of the ordinary”. He gives a quick history lesson of the city and of  course mentions the greatest, infamous, tourist attraction star, Fritz Honka. He interviews some random people on the street, who obviously think they are in a legit documentary about serial killers and not in some amateurish, zero-budget, shits-for-giggles, underground splatter titled Violent Shit 2, (a.k.a Violent Shit II: Mother Hold My Hand) made just to piss off the conservative bureaucrats at the censor boards in Germany. Hardy-har-har.

 

Anyway, a new killer is on the loose and Paul Glas is seeing similarities between Karl (I forgot his last name, but he was the killer in the first film), and ask an anonymous informant who supposedly has some secret information about the killings, and blah, blah, blah… To just cut it short and get to the point; Karl The Butcher is Son of Karl Senior and he’s out on a mission to avenge his father by wandering on a murderous rampage and kill everyone in his way with his machete. That’s everything we need to know, and enough of a plot that a film like this is able to comprehend, especially if you’re half-drunk while watching this shit already.

 

Violent Shit 2

 

After the halting docu-sequence, we’re back at the countryside where Karl Junior lives with his deranged mother. She has a murder fetish, and looks like Hillary Clinton with Freddy Krueger make-up. And of course, she has taught her boy to become an equally retarded, redneck sadist just like his father, so he can entertain her with torturing and killing random victims to feed her fetish and get her pussy wet. Afterwards she drinks the blood of the victims from a bowel that Karl serves her. Karl also forces one of the victims to eat his own shit, just to make us pretty ensured once and for all that it’s still Violent and it’s still Shit, and still one of the most self-aware titles ever.

 

And from here it’s basically the first film all over again, just with a longer runtime. So if you liked the first one, you’ll love this one, for sure. It’s gag-reel after gal-reel with close-ups showing limbs getting sawed off, heads shoveled off and blown to pieces by a handgun. Entrails getting ripped out of the victims stomach, and we get a pretty nasty scene where someones ballsack gets ripped apart by a hook. Andreas Schnaas is also very careful to shoot the scenes in broad daylight so we can enjoy some of  of the nasty details among the muddy image quality. We get a little time to catch our breath with a training montage, Rocky-style, where he levels himself up to hunt victims at a more rapid pace. The film also slips into pornographic territory with some fugly vagina-close-ups just to give the final middle-finger to Germany’s censor board.

 

Violent Shit II is available from Synapse Fims and has been remastered with some silly, cartoonish sound effects, and replaced the copyrighted music from the original VHS version with its new, own soundtrack. The added subtitles are as hilarious as the first one. It’s also stretched to widescreen to reduce the raw, unfiltered and amateurish home video quality. It still makes Bad Taste look like a glossy Hollywood production by comparison, though.

 

Violent Shit 2 Violent Shit 2 Violent Shit 2

 

Director: Andreas Schnaas
Country & year: Germany, 1992
Actors: Andreas Schnaas, Anke Prothmann, Claudia von Bihl, and a bunch of friends of Andreas Schnaas
IMDb: www.imdb.com/title/tt0105759/

 

Sequels:
Violent Shit III: Infantry of Doom (1999)
Violent Shit 4: Karl the Butcher vs Axe (2010)

Prequel:
Violent Shit (1989)

 

Tom Ghoul

 

 

 

 

Violent Shit (1989)

Violent Shit Somewhere in Germany we see a random boy who’s playing with a ball, and gets spanked by his mom for coming home late. The boy then kills her with a meat cleaver, and our new terrifying slasher villain “Karl the Butcher” (or simply “The Butcher”) is born. Then we skip twenty years later where The Butcher is being transported by the polizei from-or-to God knows. Then one of the transporters have to take a piss, and The Butcher manages to escape as soon they stop the car, and kills them all in the worst low budget-way which is pretty indescribable. And we’re only seven minutes in, so take this as a foretaste to what the rest of the movie will be.

 

Then we’re being introduced to a nameless blonde chick who drives to a gas station, parks the car and switches to an other car to continue driving. When she arrives at the countryside and into the woods, the car dies and she yells “scheisse”, which describes this movie pretty well so far. And now that it’s gotten dark and her being all alone, what could happen? We see The Butcher from pov-view while he halts and grunts like a pig, then attacks her, and cuts one of her titties off. Make me wonder if Lars Von Trier has seen this. However, he then butches her to pieces (off camera) and eats some of her entrails. Yummy, good night.

 

Next day, The Butcher hunts for more victims in the countryside when something unexpected happens: he suddenly collapses. Maybe food poisoning from the woman’s guts he ate last night? Or maybe the actor is simply tired of this (violent) shit and realized that his performance never would lead to any Oscar Nominations, and would rather go home and play Nintendo? Who knows. Movie over? No way! We haven’t even gotten halfway through its running time. Then we meet our next victim who by a  coincidence spots The Butcher laying by the road. And, like nice and empathic people do, he checks if he needs help, which of course turns to be quite opposite when The Butcher grabs his meat cleaver and cuts his hand off. And his dick, which he don’t eat. Thank God. And in order to not waste any precious time, we’re jumping straight over to the next victim, an aggravated redneck, played by the director Andreas Schnaas himself, who yells (in German) “fucking shit”. At least, the movie seems to have a sense of self-awareness.

 

And at this point I think you know the drill: every new character who gets on camera is just set up to be the next victim and killed off as quickly as they came, like a fart in the wind. So yeah, Violent Shit couldn’t be a more blunt and fitting title: It’s Violent Shit and that’s exactly what you get. A bunch of death scenes filmed over four weeks, “directed” (to use that word loosely) by Andreas Schnaas, who is a part of the trinity of the underground horror scene from Germany, along with Olaf Ittenbach and Jörg Buttgereit. Shot with his friends and with a budget that was enough to buy some gallons of cranberry juice as fake blood, rent a low-fi Video-8 format-camera and buy a lot of Heineken. The result is something you would expect to see from some kids in their early teens made for shits and giggles in their back yard on a weekend without any goal, purpose, ambition or a script.

 

One thing’s for sure: if you’re a fan of non-budget-amateurish-splatter horror, Violent Shit won’t fail to entertain you. The witty German dialogue, which apparently are just improvised and dubbed in post-production, makes it even more funny. Also worth mentioning that Andreas Shnaaas did the impressive thing of actually managing to drag his Violent Shit to the movie theaters in Germany, but it was pulled shortly after when it got under the censor board’s radar. It eventually found its way over to the USA where it became an underground cult classic on VHS.

 

A “Five Films Collector’s Shitition” with all of the four Violent Shit-films and the zombie flick “Zombie ’90: Extreme Pestilence” is available from Synapse Films. Knock yourself out. I couldn’t find any trailer, but down below you can see a clip with Karl The Butcher in action showing no mercy.

 

Violent Shit

 

Director: Andreas Schnaas
Country & year: Germany, 1989
Actors: Andreas Schnaas, Gabi Bäzner, Wolfgang Hinz, Volker Mechter, Christian Biallas, Uwe Boldt
IMDb: www.imdb.com/title/tt0094271/

 

Sequels:
Violent Shit II (1992)
Violent Shit III: Infantry of Doom (1999)
Violent Shit 4: Karl the Butcher vs Axe (2010)

 

Tom Ghoul