Amoklauf

Its interesting now that Uwe Boll seems to be pursuing some sort of artistic intentions with his cinema to see this early work and realise that his mainstream offerings were never his first love, that he had some sort of a plan all along. I've actually only seen one of his films, the lamentable Seed so I have no comment on his general qualities, but Amoklauf is a successful little film if not an especially entertaining or interesting one. Its a study in a private and dysfunctional personality, in lonely obsession and ultimate bloody breaking point. Our nameless protagonist is a waiter, but mostly he stays at home watching videotapes, a German game show, slaughterhouse and execution footage apparently from Faces of Death and finally a porno. He also fantasies about murder, masturbates and philosophizes that man is a worthless creature who will suffer anything just to survive. Not a pleasant or stable individual in essence, and the film puts us right there with him. We watch his TV through his eyes, sometimes we watch his TV with him, sometimes we watch his face as he watches his TV. We see his apartment as well, sometimes we see him go about mundane rites and sometimes we see him just sit there. Its a fitting mixture of ennui and unpleasantness, as the film goes a cold, twitchy feeling accumulates, and a bleak tension along with nagging boredom, by the final ten minutes its hard not to fair pray for the guy to snap. And snap he does with memorably grim intensity in a skillfully stylised scene that uses changes in film stock, slow motion and grainy close ups to highlight the alienation, granting an almost lyrical mood. A classy cap off in other words and it pretty much makes the whole experience worthwhile. On the whole this is difficult to recommend though. Its a film that cares little for engagement, nor poetry or depth in its subject. It works as an exercise in nihilism, perhaps almost perfectly as unlike something like Angst it lacks visual fascination or genuine fear, it doesn't transcend its subject matter with much in the way of added aesthetic value until the climax and that's just a fraction of the overall runtime. But this bare nihilism simply isn't that fulfilling, it works somewhat as a curio but as cinema is frankly a bit lacking. Not that I actually disliked the experience, I've just come to prefer work that has more to offer. A bit hard to rate this one as it does what it sets out to do, isn't actually bad and may even be pretty worthy to some tastes. 5/10 oughta cover it I think.

This little production reveals what Boll was trying to be when he was still trying anything: another Michael Haneke. The movie feels a lot like this directors' works from the Eighties, e.g., "Benny's Video". The most distinguishing feature of Bolls recent movies, the overemployment of annoying visual style elements, is already present here, as the entire finale of the movie is shot from two intercut camera angles, and presented entirely in slow-motion. While I was quite happy with the dual-perspective idea, I could have done without all the slomo.

There must have been a very tight budget, and it shows: I'm pretty sure that the amok victims are all Uwe's buddies from movie school, and the long sequences where you don't see anything except videocopied episodes from a German TV show suggests that they had to try anything just to bring the movie over the rounds. Again, this reminded me a lot of Haneke's style.

In sum, it's surprisingly good for what it is, even though being a derivate of better directors' stuff.

Most of us will known Uwe Boll, the director, from Bloodrayne and Alone In The Dark or the more gory Seed. sadly for the main he's know for really bad films. But I liked some of his flicks. By attending conventions I ran across Uwe at a convention where he signed and gave me this flick. It's one of his earlier attempts and a whole different kind than his major releases. The way it was filmed did remind me of Schramm. Especially the scene's at the killer's home. The edition I have is full uncut. And it's not this short feature which clocks in at an hour, that made it to be cut. It's the television that makes it really not for the squeamish. First of all there is footage visible of animal cruelty an some footage of a slaughterhouse. Further on the killer looks at someone being electrocuted but that looked like the scene from Faces Of Death. When he's watching the TV it all takes a bit too long. Just see the scene were he's looking at the German version of The Price Is Right. Others will be offended by the porn flick he's watching while he's masturbating and a victim is laying on the ground. The camera zooms in on the television, what you see is not for pussies. Sucking, f***ing, two dicks in one pussy, facial cum shots, in g-fact a summary of a porn flick. But if you left the television out of this feature then there isn't that much too see. When he becomes a mass murderer it's shown in slo-mo and again, it's really a slow scene. But it does fit in the era being made, the first German splatters and of course Schramm from 1994. Too slow for nowadays but still confronting what he's watching on the TV.

Uwe Boll is among the most hated horror directors.It's true that both of his adaptations of video games "House of the Dead" and "Alone in the Dark" pretty much sucked,but "Amoklauf" is a real deal.I enjoyed this low-budget German splatter flick.In many ways it reminded me Jorg Buttgereit's disturbing serial killer movie "Schramm".This film tells the story of a lonely man,who lives in a total isolation.He works as a waiter and in his free time he watches "Faces of Death" plus a lot of porn and masturbates,whilst lying semi-naked on his bed.Suddenly he violently kills his beautiful female neighbour with a knife and this is the beginning of his bloody amok.Soon the orgy of violent mass murder is set in motion..."Amoklauf" is a surprisingly grim and unsettling German serial killer flick which offers plenty of grue.Give it a look,even if you dislike Uwe Boll's recent works.Fans of Jorg Buttgereit and Gerald Kargl should check it out.8 out of 10.