The Burning Moon

Germany, it still will be a weird country. Most of the movies coming from there are the real gory splatter ones. Weird, because the German authorities doesn't allow those kind of movies. Bethmann and Ittenbach are the best know directors of the genre with Bethmann having his own label, X Rated Kult. Do I need to say more. This movie belongs to Ittenbach's first attempts in the genre. Still unavailable on DVD it conquered the earth on VHS, but still some versions were only 88 minutes long. My copy was uncut, so 99 minutes long. The flick is about a guy who has to babysit his little sister. Fed up with his parents and the situation, he's in his puberty, he tells his sister some horror stories. The stories itself those are the one we see in the movie. Two stories it is, the first one not that original, and not that gory too, some stupid effects, watch out for the collision with a car and a person! But the second story is the best, and there you will find the gore. like Premutos it's full of entrails and torture. This is for the geeks out there, one of Ittenbach better ones.

Indie film at its most base. I really dug the whole segmented story line. However, the very last scene could shock the fur off a kitten. By then the drugs were kicking in anyway. This is the most horrific portrayal of Hell I have EVER seen. And I have seen a lot. The leg-ripping sequence alone is worth two quarts of Miller High Life. I feel sorry for the butcher shop that sponsored this film. He must have went broke. Was there a moral? Maybe. Perhaps we should all watch what we say to one another...blah blah blah. Or maybe we should drink from cans whilst watching a truly disturbing horror film because bottles spill when you bolt out of your chair after seeing a man eat his own eyeball.

"The Burning Moon" is a shot on video type home movie,but a bit more professional than other similar stuff.It has some really good special effects and is gorier than Andreas Schnaas' stuff,if a little less sadistic.The film is about a druged up teen(Olaf Ittenbach)who gets involved with gang fights and has problems at home.He reads his little sister two stories-which form a basis of the movie.First story "Julia's Love" is about a serial killer,who escapes from asylum and terrorises a girl.Second story "The Purity" is about a priest who likes sacrificing and raping women.He kills himself,but a local who think another bloke is the killer kills him,and he returns as a zombie and it climaxes in Hell.Ittenbach's vision of Hell is almost too horrible to watch-the gore is truly extreme!A really good film,my favourite gore scene:a man strapped to a table is operated on by two demons,who pluck out his eye,crave open his body,rip out his insides and then tear him in half with chains from crotch to throat.

Olaf Ittenbach's Burning Moon earns high praise as he carries on the tradition of film in the underground genre of the splatter horror film. Combing a Romero/Fulci world, the movie tells a story of Peter (played by Ittenbach) who recites 2 horrific bedtime stories to his sister.

One entitled "Julia's Love" tells the story of a serial killer who takes his blind date and her family on a blood soaked killing rampage. The scenes of splatter are suspiciously amateurish compromised of blood splatter on walls, and good old exploding heads. Ittenbach relishes in gratuitous gore and a standard knife to the head is done with like almost flawless spectacular Stan Winston special effects.

The second bedtime story called "The Purity" is about a crazed satan-worshipping priest and the disturbed small German town that has been invaded by some mysterious killings. The townspeople try to find revenge on an innocent suspect. This story gets long and tedious but the payoff is almost worth it.

The end of the story sequence is interrupted by "Hell" the neverending, non stop gore footage. Body parts, intestines, decapitated arms, heads, legs. Ittenbach includes a unique ocular trauma scene in which a man eats his own eyeball.

Ittenbach shares his German glory with Jorg Buttgereit and his Nekromantik films. If you like the previously mentioned films, Burning Moon is up your alley.

They don't make movies like this anymore and it seems the more we get bombarded by Hollywood horror teen scream-a-thons, the more you appreciate an all out gore-fest.

One day while surfing the net I happened to come upon a gif of some guy getting torn in half from his crotch up. And it was awesome. I happened to find out it was by a guy I was indeed aware of. One of the true gorehound horror directors out there. Mister Olaf Ittenbach. With that scene and the realization it was made by Olaf, it was time to watch The Burning Moon.

The story is about some doucher/druggie/low-life who tells his young sister some stories before she goes to bed. Not that she wanted to hear them. He was shootin up so he thought it was a good idea. Anyways, he tells her two grim as hell stories that don't skimp out on the red stuff. The first revolves around an escaped blood-thirsty mental patient and a young girl who accidentally went out on a date with him. Bad things go down. Which is good! The second story revolves around an evil priest, an innocent young man and a bunch of angry town folk. This second story also delivers the red stuff, and the last third of this one is pretty much non-stop grue.

Both stories were very grim, very evil, and just flat out what a serious horror fan should appreciate. Olaf's movies are rarely ever produced on high budgets, but what he manages to show us is pretty impressive. The atmospheres and overall tone of this flick really was very ugly and downbeat. And as usual the writing is very weak, but still, as usual, pretty funny.

The Burning Moon is another gore-filled flick from Olaf that any fan of said director, gore and horror should definitely give it a peek. And did I mention a dude gets graphically ripped in half? Oh yeah.