Nekromantik

Obviously filmed on super8-format Jörg Buttgereit´s masterpiece "Nekromantik" looks much more professional and expensive than it´s actually is! Being banned in many countries the most people only see a depraved and disgusting horror movie in it, but to me it is a disturbing, but simultaneously beautiful film about a weird fetish! The whole film is surrounded by an almost apocalyptic poetry and the wonderful piano score emphazises the sinister death-is-everywhere atmosphere perfectly! Some may be offended by gross scenes like the suicide masturbation, the autopsy, the rabbit dissection, the beheading of an old cemetery gardener or the climax when Robert and Betty have sex with the corpse (A very esthetical scene by the way...), but exactly that´s the stuff which makes this movie so unique: the surreal combination of bizarre symbolic, gore and dream like mood! Watch it whenever wherever you can!

Jorg Buttgereit's most famous movie. And just for the record, the combined cost of both, "Nekromantik" and "Nekromantik 2" was something like $45,000. Anyway, I happen to like this movie, or, to be exact, this necrophiliac love story. A good thing about it is that it's not some stupid exploitation flick, and its ultra low budget and cheap special effects fit well into the whole mode. I love this whole primitive, underground feel of it all. Buttgereit and the star Daktari Lorenz actually managed to make a likable character out of a necrophiliac. Poor Rob, he just couldn't get no satisfaction until his own unfortunate demise. And the "love" scenes were all consumed by these artsy blurs and twinkles. It's weird, but the most brutal scene in the movie seemed to be the documentary footage of a farmer skinning a rabbit. Finally, to top it off, the film's soundtrack was strangely compelling and evocative. "Nekromantik" is a pure underground cult classic, no doubt about it.

I have to admit that I like this film. At the same time, I don't know whether or not I can sit through it again. Jorg Buttgeireit proves himself as quite a revolutionary director in this field of film-making, and since has gone on to make even better films.

Nekromantik is actually not a very complicated story. Robert and Betty are in love. Robert and Betty have some sick fetish's. Robert works for a company that cleans up dead bodies, and one day Robert brings home a rather rotten cadaver pulled out from a swamp. When I say rotten, I mean disgustingly rotten. Well, after Robert and Betty have a rather disgusting threesome with there new found friend, Robert gets fired from his job. It is at this point that Betty leaves him and takes the rotten corpse with her. The rest of the movie is Robert trying to cope with his loss.

This movie has to be seen to believe. I wouldn't recommend this to just the average horror fan. You have to be wanting to look for something new. In my case, I had seen everything. My collection of horror films is in the hundreds. But I hadn't seen this. The second film is rather good also, and I am having a hard time deciding which movie had the sickest ending. I hope this comment helps. 8/10

For the uninitiated, Nekromantik is one of the most notorious horror movies ever made. It may actually be reviled more than it is admired, even in horror circles, but it's one of those few movies that's provocative, in the truest sense of the word. Nekromantik is the story of a nice young couple with unusual sexual proclivities. Specifically, in order to get off, they require congress with a human corpse -- or at least a nice selection of pickled organs. Fortunately for these two, the fella (Daktari Lorenz) has a good job on the clean-up crew that tidies up automobile accidents, and eventually winds up with a real find, a half-rotten carcass dragged out of a swamp. He brings it home, where he and Betty (Beatrice M.) give it a warm welcome in a distended love scene involving a striking optical-printing technique that leaves motion trails on the screen as someone (presumably Lorenz, who doubled as composer of the score) pounds out the lyrical love theme on a piano. It's not all hugs and corpses, however, and when Betty abandons Rob after a tiff, the corpse goes with her.

I didn't stumble on this film by accident; in fact, I purposefully sought it out, and I'm glad I did - but only because now I'm not searching any more. I feel like a bit of a hypocrite for criticising this film for being sick, given that many of my favourite movies can be described with the same adjective; but Nekromantik crosses a line, and it doesn't even do it in a way that's interesting. The movie features quite a few brutal and sickening scenes, but most of them have no relevance to the plot; and even the ones that do don't serve the film in the way that they should. Nekromantik looks like a trashy piece of crap, and make no mistake; that's exactly what it is. As if the title doesn't give it away, the plot handles the theme of necrophilia. We follow a sewage worker who brings home body parts for his twisted girlfriend. One day, he manages to lay his hands on a full corpse; and unlike most women, she is delighted with this present. We then get 'treated' to seeing the three of them (...) in bed together, etc etc and it's all very difficult to enjoy.

The film obviously wants to examine love; but it just continually fails. No points are made, even the fact that the girlfriend ends up choosing the corpse over her man isn't explored at all. It would seem that the sick pervert who wrote it had a great idea about making a film that handles two of life's most important elements; namely, love and death, but had no idea of exactly how he would go about doing it. The result is this film. Necrophilia is, undoubtedly, a perverse subject; but it's also one that automatically generates intrigue, yet this film also fails even in that respect. The whole plot line is just too silly to take seriously; and even if you look at the movie as a black comedy, it still fails because it's not funny. The necrophilia element isn't even the most shocking thing about this movie; the most shocking things are the animal violence (pointless), and the fact that some people actually like this film! If I really had to come up with positive things about Nekromantik, I would say that I liked the score; and the fact that it's not on for long is a very good thing. On the whole, this movie is a piece of garbage - don't waste your time! Wayward cinema has produced far more satisfying gore-porn flicks than this.