Das deutsche Kettensägen Massaker

The German horror scene has produced many an entertaining low-budget splatterfest, but The German Chainsaw Massacre is not one of them: it is totally unworthy of its 'Chainsaw Massacre' title, being about as far removed from the excellence of Tobe Hooper's classic as possible.

Writer director Christoph Schlingensief attempts to combine political satire (about the reunification of Germany) with extreme violence and outrageous sleaze, but the film is a complete failure: it's a messy, incomprehensible assault on the senses that features ugly characters screaming and shouting at each other for just over an hour, with some inept bargain-basement gore thrown in for good measure. At least Olaf Ittenbach's films had decent special effects.

Udo Kier appears in this garbage; he wears a ridiculous curly wig and screams and shouts with the rest of them. If this isn't his worst film, I'd hate to see what is (maybe one of the director's other films that also feature Kier?).

This film has to be understood in the correct context; Schlingensief did not try to make a splatter movie, he just uses elements of the splatter genre, just as in other movies he used pieces of "new German cinema", neorealism, and so on. His objective I think was to make a truthful film about the so-called German reunification, and if its weird, confusing, brutal, tasteless, and very badly acted, this only adds to its truthfulness, because that is what the "reunification" actually was like. Christoph Schlingensief made the first honest and adequate film on this event from Germany's most recent history, and up to date it remains the only one.

This film is not disturbing, scary, thought-provoking, or even remotely funny. It's like a mash-up of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre 2 and Pink Flamingos. People run around screaming--not out of fright but rather for no apparent reason--doing and saying supposedly "outrageous" things meant to provoke shocked laughter. It is just tiresome and extremely boring.

The gore is very poorly done, in the H. G. Lewis manner. Animal innards are simply placed on top of the actors to suggest disembowelments and such. The best thing I could say about it is that it is surprisingly polished and professional looking for a one hour "art" film. What I had expected and hoped to find however was something gritty and grimy-looking, such as the original The Texas Chain Saw Massacre.

Surrealistic, semi-expressionistic absurd. I like it. Montage is very well rounded. Some cuts are really exceptions. Film in total works on dream logic, but it doesn't really represent anything important.

A homemade gore flick from Germany that might better be called THE GERMAN CHAINSAW MASSACRE. An East German refugee lands in the hands of a family of butchers and cannibals. One of those films with no restraint or sense, instead just overwhelming the viewer with constant gore and screaming. Pitifully cheap and extremely annoying with it.