Premutos - Der gefallene Engel

While I love Dead Alive, Premutos is clearly better in the splatter dept. While the English overdub is pretty bad, gore-hounds will be blown away. Dead alive may actually have more bloodshed, but Premutos has more brutality and grit. Everything about Premutos just has a filth to it unlike anything else. Olaf Ittenbach is a master makeup fx genius. Wrap your face in barbed wire and add tension until your lips are ripped back over your gums revealing your skull, that's Premutos. Clean the beer vomit off the coffee table then wipe your face with the same rag, that's Premutos. Unrelenting epic masterpiece of Splatterrific mayhem and carnage. Peace.

Olaf Ittenbach's low budget splatter-fest Premutos often crops up in discussions about 'the goriest movie ever', but whilst it is certainly no slouch in the bloodletting department, with mucho heads-a-popping, limb tearing-a-plenty, and absolutely gallons of the red stuff, it definitely isn't the title holder (that honour goes to Peter Jackson's Braindead, in my humble opinion).

The film, which spans centuries, and includes biblical reconstructions, battle scenes (both medieval and WWII), and bucket-loads of gore, is certainly an impressive achievement on a tight budget, but unfortunately, for the most part, it is also pretty unwatchable—an impossible to decipher tale of ancient fallen angels and black magic that unwisely mixes awful comedy in with the violence (and, in the version I saw, is very badly dubbed). Only towards the end of the film, when a horde of zombies attack the guests at a birthday party, does the film really kick into gear delivering a barrage of bloody FX to satisfy even the most demanding gore-hound.

If, like me, you're a fan of ultra-gore and underground German splatter, then you will probably want to check out this film purely because of its reputation. If, however, you would rather sample a decent Ittenbach movie, try The Burning Moon or Beyond the Limits, both of which actually make sense.

Young guy Mathias(Olaf Ittenbach)has visions of a fallen angel,Premutos wreaking havoc thorough the ages.His stepfather Walter(Christopher Stacey)unearths an ancient book of evil and when Mathias read it he is transformed into Premutos.Raising an army of zombies,Premutos gatecrashes Walter's birthday party and all hell breaks loose."Premutos-The Fallen Angel" clearly plays homage to classic horror films like "The Evil Dead","Dawn of the Dead" or "Scanners".There is an incredible amount of blood and gore-this film easily ranks up with Peter Jackson's "Braindead".The 30 minute climax is amazing-non stop gore and slaughter.We have a glorious kill count of 139 here and they are seemingly all shown.There is also pretty nice sex scene added for a good measure.Highly recommended.

I enjoyed the previous Ittenbach movie that I'd seen, "Burning Moon". But while that movie was rather grim and nasty, "Premutos" seems to mostly play it for laughs. While its admirable how Ittenbach made this movie with no money in his spare time (and the DVD documentary is worthwhile to see this), I found myself constantly battling not to fast-forward to the next gore scene. Sure, there's gore, and if that's all you want then go ahead and enjoy. But be warned: there's an inordinate amount of lame comedy and tedious story exposition. Many are comparing this to Peter Jackson's movies, especially "Braindead". But looking at what Jackson did on a similar budget in "Bad Taste", it's clear Ittenbach is lacking one thing that Jackson has - talent. 3/10 (for pretty good and plentiful gore effects, and for getting the most out of limited resources - but not worth the money I paid for it)

While Premutos isn't the most comprehensible of films... and it drags more than a little towards the end [with some rather unnecessary scenes at a dinner party] - that's unimportant.

You watch it for the end. The words "violent orgasm" don't begin to describe the apocalyptic mayhem that consumes the end of this movie - a battle against the undead that includes pistols, shotguns, swords, grenades, pick axes, chainsaws, scythes, machineguns and main battle tanks. Absolutely incredible and worth every minute of what came before it - this fight is one of the best put to horror film.