Das deutsche Kettensägen Massaker

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.

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.

I enjoyed this more than the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre (got sick of the woman screaming for 30 mins) the German re-unification theme is very interesting, with out of work boarder guards still trying to hassle people & people moving from the East to West going missing. low budget, gory (but not very realistic effects, but that's OK, its low budget). its quite demented. I enjoyed it.

Enfant terrible Schlingensief's view on the relationship between West and East Germans (Wessies and Ossies) is a very black, trash and low-budgeted horror film in which the Ossies are massacred and eaten by the Wessies; that is the way Schlingensief sees relationships between people in general. The story (such as there is) is hard to follow; Schlingensief seems more interested in showing atmosphere. Very gory horror effects, quite some faces are beaten to mash.

There are some nice scenes, like the 5 former GDR customs officers who think the GDR still exists, but on the whole watching this film takes quite some perseverance not for the over the top horror (thàt over the top that it is hardly shocking), but for its heavy handed direction, ditto photography (very tiresome at moments), its grim view on life and lack of humour. On the other hand: to Mr. Schlingensief these four aspects may be going hand in hand, which would mean that he at least succeeded in making a very personal film. Hard core vegetarians better be ware.