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One of European cinema’s most distinctive, fearless and tireless narrative and documentary filmmakers, Eckhart Schmidt, died of natural causes at his home in Munich on Oct. 24, only a few days before his 86th birthday.

His best-known film, the psychological horror thriller, “The Fan,” was graphic and shocking when it premiered in 1982, and its stomach-churning tale of a cannibalistic groupie was influential on a generation of horror filmmakers, but the film didn’t achieve mass commercial success upon its initial release.

Banned in several territories for its jarring, bloody portrait of a rock star-obsessed teenager, in the past decade the film has undergone a global rediscovery, popping up in sold-out screenings at film festivals (like Thessaloniki in 2019) and a social media obsession to match its heroine’s zeal (but thankfully not her savagery).

Before his multi-disciplinary career in the visual arts, Schmidt worked as a film critic for the newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung,...

Producer and filmmaker Eckhart Schmidt has shot documentaries and five feature films in Sicily. Through his docs, he discovered that Bagheria-born Giuseppe Tornatore was highly influenced by the monsters of the Villa Palagonia, and that Francesco Rosi shot his movie “Salvatore Giuliano” on all original locations. Schmidt’s features shot in Sicily include 2021’s “Palermo. Gente,” of which he writes “I was filming the Sicilian way of life as it is represented in a small three-face statue: showing a girl, the devil and the death.”

His impressions of Sicily offer compelling pictures of the island’s locations:

You step out from your Agrigento hotel room to the terrace and there you are in front of the Greek temples. You walk down a little staircase to Palermo’s Catacombe dei Cappuccini, where the air-dried corpses of some hundred men and women hang on walls or lie in shelves and show faces...

When German filmmaker Eckhart Schmidt’s 1982 romantic shock thriller “The Fan” plays the prestigious Thessaloniki Festival this year, it’s a culmination of the film’s long multi-decade road back from critical disdain and commercial obscurity as well as a sweet vindication for the obstreperous octogenarian film artist and critic.

The Munich-based Schmidt’s iconoclastic career has taken him down a long and winding road from his first feature films in the ’60s, through a long stint as an outspoken film critic and successful television producer, entertainment arts documentarian, Bavarian film funds executive and back again to his first love as narrative filmmaker. In the past few years, he has directed nearly a dozen feature films. He was first noted in Variety in 1967 when his feature film directing debut, “Jet Generation,” was about to premiere in Germany.

When “Jet Generation” premiered, it was the height of the Swinging ‘60s in Europe.

Try your luck and enter to win a copy of The Fan on Blu-ray! Shock recently raved about Mondo Macabro‘s new Blu-ray release of writer/director Eckhart Schmidt’s devastating 1982 new wave psychodrama The Fan (Der Fan) last week and you can read that review right here. The film follows a young girl who is in…

The post Contest: Win a Copy of German Psychodrama The Fan on Blu-ray! appeared first on Shock Till You Drop.

Welcome to the latest episode of The ScreamCast! Each episode sees hosts Sean Duregger and Brad Henderson review a Scream Factory release, however this week the ScreamCast gang are doing things a little differently…

This week we discuss Mondo Macabro’s stunning blu-ray of Eckhart Schmidt’s Der Fan with Mondo Macabro co-founder Pete Tombs. Also, some Nazisploitation lands on Sean’s doorstep, while some musical comedies and mediocre action movies arrive on Brad’s doorstep.

Don’t forget to check out TheScreamCast.com for the show notes and for more news and reviews of Scream Factory releases and make sure to follow them on Twitter too!

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Hypnotic, unsettling and featuring a killer score by Rheingold, Eckhart Schmidt’s Der Fan (aka Trance) is a special film, and one that’s sadly been unavailable on DVD in the U.S. and Canada. Until now! Beloved cult label Mondo Macabro, who just dove into Blu-ray with The Slave and Sean Hogan’s The Devil’S Business have revealed […]...

On Friday, October 25th, we took a trip to Sheffield, South Yorkshire, to enjoy three days of premier horror programming at the Celluloid Screams film festival. Take a look in here for some of the fear-filled sights and sounds to come from the Sheffield Showroom Workstation this year.

Nestled next to Sheffield Hallam University, the Showroom Workstation cinema offers a haven for local film buffs, students and artists, and also sports one of the most impressively relaxed café bars of any film screening establishment we've been to thus far. Real ale on tap – kudos! Upon walking through the doors and approaching the box office, your attention was immediately drawn to the selection of severed body parts and cobwebs hanging at head height. This also extended to the bar and concessions stand, lending a nice kooky, spooky feeling to the weekend's events.

Pass holders for the festival also received a complimentary goodie bag on arrival,...