Nekromantik 2

Joerg Buttgereit's films have their own unique place in horror movie history. Few directors have even come close to producing anything as beautifully depraved as "Schramm", "Der Todeskoenig" or his signature film "Nekromantik". The latter film is a superbly original romantic comedy about an unusual love triangle between a woman, her lover and a rotting corpse. It comes as something of a surprise that the sequel is content to re-hash the original - only without the sardonic humour or the perverted sense of romance. Nekromantik 2 is a strangely dour affair; the film is slow, affected and a little bit too clever for its own good. Thankfully, Buttgereit plucks enough grim and gross ideas from his wonderfully sick mind to make the film a worthy, if somewhat disappointing, sequel to a true genre classic.

Nekromantik 2 picks up where the original film finished - with Robert pleasuring himself while violently committing suicide with a kitchen knife. The brutal imagery of Robert ejaculating blood while stabbing himself has lost none of its bite. After such an eye opening beginning, the film quickly takes on a more solemn tone. Monika, a nurse with a taste for necrophilia, rescues Robert from his grave and takes him home. The painstakingly detailed depiction of erotic corpse cleaning is textbook Buttgereit. From this point on, the film loses momentum - mostly due to the fact that nothing really happens apart from Monika meeting Mark at the movies and beginning a relationship with him. The courtship between Mark and Monika is painfully boring to watch and incredibly drawn out. There are tedious close-ups of them on a ferris wheel, an unnecessary dating montage and an uncharacteristically dull sex scene.

The film only begins to show signs of life when Monika starts asking Mark to play dead during sex and shows him a family photo album full of dead relatives. It soon becomes clear that Monika is finding it difficult to choose between the decomposing object of her desire and her living boyfriend. In an excruciating scene Monika appears to choose Mark and cuts Robert into pieces with a handsaw. This sequence is wonderfully grotesque but incredibly long. Buttgereit appears intent on testing not only the viewer's ability to hold down their dinner, but also their patience. Despite chopping him into small pieces, Monika can't seem to part with Robert completely, so she keeps his head and his penis in the fridge. Strangely, Mark doesn't take finding a decomposing penis in his girlfriend's icebox as an indication that he should look for a new woman. The film falls into another slump until the gory conclusion, with the exception of a particularly unsavoury and lengthy clip of a baby seal being dissected. Thankfully, the conclusion is premium Buttgereit as Monika finds a way to enjoy the company of both Mark and Robert simultaneously.

Buttgereit's excruciatingly long and detailed depictions of corpse cutting, animal dissection and dating rituals do not make for great viewing but the parallels that these sequences draw and the clinical detachment with which Buttgereit draws them, are intellectually stimulating - if clumsy and pretentious. That is not to say that the film is entirely without humour. The film within a film about ornithology is very amusing and a clear swipe at "art-house" filmmakers. The irony is that Nekromantik 2 is 10 minutes of necrophiliac sex and extreme gore away from being art-house fodder itself. Those 10 minutes make up for a lot of the film's posing. The make-up and gore effects are typically gross despite the extremely plastic looking corpses. The seal dissection looks like it has been stolen from the Greenpeace archives as it appears to be authentic.

The acting and general production values are still rather amateur in nature. This is easy to disregard when you are being swept along with Buttgereit's gory magic as with the original "Nekromantik". However, these flaws are far more obvious at the snail's pace with which this film proceeds. Monika M puts in the best performance and makes an appealing lead with her clear blue eyes and Germanic disinterest. Buttgereit's direction and script remain as idiosyncratic as ever. I'm convinced that Buttgereit is a genius but this film only shows rare glimpses of what he is capable of. Nevertheless, Nekromantik 2 does give us something to think about while we wait patiently for his next dose of cinematic perversion.

Graphic depictions of corrupted flesh is not a substitute for the momentum created with a real script using written dialogue and characters. The climactic scene in the first offering was the only interesting moment and it should have been shot differently. Buttegereit was just too ambitious here and the effect reminded me of a cheesy "Airplane!"-like sight gag. To his defense, I must say that "The Death King" and "Schramm" are infinitely better films and are actually quite watchable.(especially "Schramm")

A necrophiliac-thriller-drama-lovestory! This is by far less original movie than the first one (its a sequel, after all!). Basic difference is that it is realised from the female point of view. Some nice ideas and all. Whatever the case, it's worth it to see for the great ending alone (thats the case with part one, as well, but Nekromantik 1 is a much greater film if you ask me)

Well, the one thing I liked better about this movie, when comparing it to its predecessor, was that this movie had a more professional look over it. Because of this the movie also was more 'pleasant' to watch and easier to follow.

Yes, it made the movie and what it tried to achieve more understandable all. However this doesn't mean I liked the movie much though. The movie still remained a bad and tasteless one that uses simple and cheap gore to disgust the viewers.

It tries to set up its mood by building up things incredibly slow. It has many long, slow moving sequences and besides that the movie is also featuring sequences that just don't add enough to the movie and seem to be only put into it to disgust its viewers. How can you find some joy and entertainment in seeing a woman making love to a corpse a watch a the autopsy of a seal? I couldn't even watch that sequence since seals are my favorite animals.

As a sequel it also doesn't add enough. I mean, this movie basically features the same sort of story as the original. It has the same sort of sequences, though this movie succeeds better at it at trying to tell a story as well. Not that its much of a story though. Jörg Buttgereit tries to achieve much but succeeds at little. He also directed the original first movie, as well as some other German shockers, such as "Der Todesking" and "Schramm". He must have a real sick mind to make movies like this really and it's not like I can't handle any gore or disturbing sequences. The gorier the better really. This movie however just goes too far, even for my taste.

The acting is horrible within this movie. Just like in its predecessor they try to conceal this by giving the actors as little dialog as possible. I'm sure this movie would had been far worse when it featured more dialog, so it was a good choice really. Yes, it also adds well to the atmosphere and style of the movie, which basically prevented this movie from being a completely horrible one.

More watchable than the first movie but still mostly a movie of bad taste.

5/10

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The first "Nekromantik" is one of my favorite underground horror films. Although "Nekromantik 2" is shot beautifully and has some really good gore scenes, it just doesn't have the punch that the first one did. There are many scenes that are long and drawn-out and detract from the pace of the film. Some scenes seem like they don't belong in the film at all. There are some genuinely funny scenes that are good for a laugh, and definitely some strong gore that rivals the first "Nekromantik", but I found myself checking my watch too often. Buttgereit and crew could have easily shaved a half hour off this film and made it a more sleek and streamlined film, but being that Buttgereit seemed to have a bigger budget this time, it appears he wanted to spend it on filming as much footage as possible, not always to the benefit of the viewer. Still a decent experience and definitely worth checking out for the extreme horror enthusiasts, and the ending is suitably matched to the first film. Give this one a look 7/10