La tendresse des loups

German cinema from the early 1970's is amongst the most unique, original and in this case disturbing. Based on a predatory serial killer of the 1920's whose prey was young men and boys this piece of film certainly takes a bite.

Based on the true story of Fritz Haarman who was a serial killer who preyed on young men and boys between the wars, this is a repositioning of the time line to be just after World War II in a devastated Germany. He was a man who had come under the watch of the Police but they chose to keep him as informant rather than look into his more nefarious habits.

He sells 'meat' on the black market and his visits are eagerly awaited by his customers. At night he patrols the local train station and helps out waifs and strays – some of them he takes under his wing and brings them back to his attic room. There the neighbours start to complain about the ungodly noises that emanate from the loft long into the wee hours of the German night.

Now this is deeply chilling and has scenes that will stay with you. The nasty bits are far from gratuitous but they have more of an impact because of that. Openly gay he lusts after Hans who is the German equivalent of a 'Spiv' and equally as loathsome. The lighting is just brilliant too, adding to the eerie atmosphere and the squalid detritus of post war life. Rainer Werner Fassbinder puts in an on screen appearance too – which is just cinematic gravy as far as I am concerned. The actual transfer by Arrow Video is really high quality too and it feels as if this could have been made a few years ago and not in 1973 as indeed it was. A great and worthy film to have some new life breathed into it.

Back in the early 70's, when his name wasn't yet a synonym for insufferably crappy hand-held camera horror stuff, Ulli Lommel actually was quite the promising and visionary young (barely 29 years old) director in his home country Germany. The powerful impact of "The Tenderness of Wolves" alone is already more than enough evidence to back up this statement. This is a thoroughly unsettling and disturbing drama/horror hybrid based on the true facts in the case of one of the most notorious European criminal figures of the previous century. Fritz Haarmann was a German pedophile and serial killer of young adolescent males during the Interbellum period and made nearly 30 victims in only five years of time. Haarmann makes his money by trades food and goods on the black market that he himself falsely confiscated by pretending to be a policeman. This is also how he picks up young lads in the train station and lures them to his apartment loft. Uncle Fritz probes for homeless boys and eventually murders them by biting their throats; which gave him the nickname "The Vampire of Hanover". The atrocities became even more inhuman when Fritz, together with his lover/partner-in-crime Hans Grans, sold the hacked up flesh of the victims on the black market. "The Tenderness of Wolves" is definitely not an overly graphical or tasteless film, but the subject matter is sickening and the whole portrayal of pedophilia is beyond disturbing. Haarmann pretty openly declares his affection for young boys and his entire surrounding either deliberately ignores this or even considers it to be the most common thing in the world. Only his neighbor from the apartment below suspects his psychopathic tendencies and attempts to alert the authorities, but that fails as Haarmann actually had connections with the police where he worked as a "rat".

The sequences in which Haarmann is intimate with his victims are extremely discomforting, but at the same time they make the film all the more powerful and hauntingly realistic. It seems unthinkable in this modern day and age, but it was so easy for twisted perverts to pick up unsuspecting and youthful victims. Especially in times of poverty and despair, like the case in Germany between the two World Wars. Every time Haarmann comes near a boy, you can already assume the poor kid's fate is sealed, like the runaway drifter at the railway station or the boy at the carnival. Whenever he approaches a kid, your skin is guaranteed to crawl, because his voice is so stern and despicable. "The Tenderness of Wolves" also benefices from a more than decent re-creation of the depressing era and – of course – the incredibly brilliant and courageous performance of lead actor/writer Kurt Raab. He truly depicts Fritz Haarmann exactly like an emotionless and depraved monster ought to be depicted. This certainly isn't a film that is suitable for all tastes (and even the most hardened cult fanatics need to feel in a certain state of mind to watch it), but it's undeniably a unique experience and easily one of the top five most unpleasant yet fascinating things I ever watched. Moreover, after witnessing the unforgettable tour-de-force accomplishment that is "The Tenderness of Wolves", it's all the more difficult to accept that Ulli Lommel is nowadays directing junk entitled "Zombie Nation", "Diary of a Cannibal" or "BTK Killer".

Surprisingly deemed too controversial a topic to direct himself, infant terrible Rainer Werner Fassbinder handed the reins of Tenderness of the Wolves, a deeply unsettling portrayal of serial killer Fritz Haarmann, to his protégé Ulli Lommel, the man later responsible for video nasty The Boogeyman (1980) and countless straight-to-video efforts that linger in the IMDb's Bottom 100 list. Despite this, the film looks and feels like a Fassbinder film. The characters inhabit the same sleazily-filmed world, many of Fassbinder's troupe of actors appear, and the great man himself has a small role as an ugly pimp.

Written by the great Kurt Raab, who also stars as Haarmann, Tenderness of the Wolves doesn't spend any time trying to understand the motivation of the man dubbed the Vampire of Hanover, but instead shows us a snippet of his debauched life. Moving the story from 1924 (when Haarmann was arrested in real-life) to post World War II, Germany is a country clearly feeling the economic strain of losing the war, where the black market is flourishing and con-man Haarmann is doing very well for himself. Along with his on-and-off lover and pimp Hans Grans (Jeff Roden), he swindles clothes from good Samaritans and sells them on for profit, as well as selling meat to bar owner Louise (Brigitte Mira) which may or may not be the bodies of his victims.

As a horror, it achieves it's disturbing atmosphere not through gratuitousness, but through the squalor of its setting, observant direction, and Raab's magnificent performance. Haartmann was a gay child molester who enjoyed throttling his victims, biting into their throats (often through the Adam's apple), before chopping them into pieces and throwing them into the Leine River. We don't see much of the murders, but when they do occur they are filmed without sensationalism, made all the more unsettling due to the full-frontal male nudity of some of the film's under-age actors, something extremely rare in horror even today.

Haartmann, shaven-headed and ghostly pale, manipulates his victims by posing as a police officer before drugging and overpowering them, often making little effort to cover his tracks or dispose of the bodies discretely. This arrogance, although it would eventually lead to his arrest, makes him even more of a monster, and Raab delivers a truly terrific performance. Without attempting to explain his actions or even offer a background of how Haarmann got into the criminal business and how he developed a taste for human blood, Tenderness of the Wolves becomes more about the world he inhabits and the creepy characters who surround him. It's hardly a film to discuss over breakfast, but it will no doubt stay with you for long after the credits have rolled.

Fritz Haarman-the infamous "Butcher of Hanover" was one of the worst serial killers in the recent history.During five years(1919-1924)with the help of his homosexual partner Hans Grans he butchered nearly fifty youths.Their method was always the same:they enticed a youth from railway station back to Haarman's room,Haarman killed him(according to his account by biting his throat)and the boy's body was dismembered and sold as meat.His clothes were sold,and the useless(i.e. uneatable)body parts were thrown into the river Leine.Haarman was sentenced to death,Grans to twelve years in jail.Ulli Lommel's "The Tenderness of Wolves" is a realistic portrayal of this notorious killer.It's brilliantly acted,psychologically disturbing and almost completely non-violent.Definitely a must-see!