German Angst

A horror anthology from three of Germany's most shocking film-makers, German Angst opens with Final Girl, a unusually weak effort from Nekromantik/Schramm director Jörg Buttgereit, in which a young woman vents her anger on her abusive father by castrating him and cutting off his head, all the while waxing lyrical about her pet guinea pig Mucki. Heavy on the artsy-fartsy pretentiousness, but surprisingly light on the gore (the castration occurs off-screen, although Buttgereit doesn't spare us the sight of the victim's junk), this first story is the most disappointing of the three.

The second segment, Michal Kosakowski's Make A Wish, is far more satisfying. Annika Strauss and Matthan Harris play a deaf and dumb couple of Polish descent who are humiliated and tortured by a group of racist thugs, but who manage to turn the tables on the gang's leader through the use of a magical amulet that allows the transference of souls. A nasty wartime flashback to the massacre of some Polish villagers by SS soldiers kicks off the strong stuff, and when poor innocent Strauss gets a bunch of fives in the face, its abundantly clear that this one isn't going to pull any punches.

The third story, Alraune, from Tears of Kali director Andreas Marschall, is a lot of fun if only for its sheer weirdness. Milton Welsh plays fashion photographer Eden, who recounts to his girlfriend Maya (Désirée Giorgetti) how he has been lured into joining a bizarre cult where unimaginable pleasures can be experienced, just so long as one doesn't break the rules. Of course, he does just that, and what follows is seriously bizarre, kinda like Cronenberg meets Lovecraft, with some messy mutilation involving broken glass and a toothy tentacular sex-monster.

7/10—after a frustratingly poor start, German Angst proves to be a rather entertaining anthology.

Like usual art for the sake of art,gore for shock... Big fan of European horrors,specifically French.This trilogy is artful,disturbing and that's that.Didn't provide with any substance to really engage me.Better to rewatch the great Antichrist film,by van Trier again...

If you are into anthologies, this has some pretty good stories to tell. Starting off with a witty one, it gets better and better. The best of the three "shorts" being told last, which is good thinking/planning. The first story has a pretty solid story/idea, which unfortunately is being blocked a bit by sub-par "acting" (if you can call it that). The development and the "twist" (if you can call it that), is more than decent, but the acting might bother people (or not, it's up to you, if you care or not).

The second one is also really good, also has a couple of issues with some of the acting. In this case it's more the support "players" than the couple who are the main characters in this. And then comes the last one. And that's really how you should end a anthology, because the last impression stays with people (which could be the reason why some rated it higher than they actually would have if they'd shown the shorts in a different order). Apart from the horror theme itself, there is not a major connection between those movies, they all handle a different sort of "fear" ... and that's a good thing too.

The best story is probably "Final Girl", which opens the movie, probing that less is often best. It is the shortest, only has occasional narration as a girl mutilates her (probably abussive) father, and ends when it starts to get more interesting, leaving you wanting more, which is good anyway. The second segment, "Make a Wish", is a story of old nazis and present-day neo-nazis torturing and killing Polish persons in the past and the present. It is the more complex, a tale that mixes strong ideological content with fantasy and extreme violence, but it keeps the tension. "Alraune", the third one, is the last, and I guess it was placed in the end because it delivers what horror fans like best: sex and gore. But it is the less effective: it is decidedly the worst. Too silly approach to male menopause crisis, with not-too-pleasant actors, anti-erotic situations and despite its sucking tentacles, flirt with S&M and horrific sex scenes, it is the less "angst" inducing segment of the three. A nice puke trilogy, though.

Horror anthologies have a lot of potential; they can allow directors to experiment with unusual ideas, and the short format of each segment often makes for nice, snappy pacing. Unfortunately, "German Angst" only offers half-baked, shallow ideas with awkward, disappointing pacing.

The first segment, "Final Girl," is a minimalistic tale of a young girl who sits around in her apartment and sometimes tortures her bound-and-gagged father. This could have been an interesting character portrait, but the actress playing the girl is utterly robotic and dull. Unlike the rather tragic and complex characters seen in Buttgereit's other films, this girl is a faceless cypher with no personality. There is a brief bloody death scene, but that's no substitute for an actual horror story.

The second segment, "Make A Wish" attempts a heavyhanded message but winds up being very muddled. This one is about a young deaf-mute Polish couple who get attacked by thugs. The lack of sympathetic characters is a big problem here, too: we're supposed to sympathize with the couple, but we learn nothing about their personalities. They frankly come across as vapid, upper-class idiots, since the man looks downright preppy, and they both think it's a jolly fun idea to wander alone into an abandoned building that's covered in street gangs' graffiti.

This short attempts to make a social commentary about the suffering of Poles in Germany, but it shoots itself in the foot by stereotyping the working-class characters as scary, psychotic villains. Hardly an open-minded portrayal.

This short also features a flashback to a WWII scene where nazis invade Poland and kill a farmer's family. I guess this scene was supposed to be shocking, but the violence and villainy are so over-the-top that it felt very cartoonish. When the nazis come zooming in on motorcycles, you KNOW they're evil because there's a dramatic shot of them running over a tin can! This segment is bound to get some laughs from the more irreverent audiences, as some unintentionally-goofy piano music kicks in, the Colonel Klink-esque commander yells a lot and grins like Snidely Whiplash, and the nazis slap everyone around with all the subtlety of a high school improv troupe.

In the end, this short pulls an "Incident at Owl Creek Bridge" cliche, and that's the height of its creativity. When they finally attempt to make a "deep" message, they resort to a character expositing straight into the camera. I could hardly believe they used such an amateurish hack move.

The third and final short is "Alraune." It's the most decent of the bunch, and if you actually want a spooky story, skip to the 58-minute mark to watch this one.

Unlike the first two shorts, "Alraune" understands the value of suspense and piquing the viewer's imagination. This one is about a guy who discovers a mysterious sex club which turns out to harbor a supernatural secret; most of the short is about building up the mystery surrounding the club, so this is some engaging stuff that keeps you intrigued. This short also has the only scene that actually delivers on the horror; there's a scene involving a bathtub that is both spooky and visceral.

That said, "Alraune" is a decent short but still very flawed. Again, the main character is utterly unsympathetic. The lead actor is embarrassingly hammy, like a past-his-prime action hero wannabe. At the club, we briefly see some other characters who aren't nearly as weird or creepy as the movie thinks they are. The elderly host of the club is the best character in the film, but too much of his dialogue consists of "you can't understand our secrets" cliches.

The worst aspect is the climactic scene, which is the big monster reveal.It's fine to only show your monster briefly; less is more, after all. But it's a seriously lazy, stupid gimmick to violently shake the camera around during the entire scene. It doesn't make the scene more intense or scary, it's just an annoying crutch that takes you out of the moment. After that, instead of ending on a high note, the film awkwardly fizzles out with a few final scenes, ending everything on a very weak note.

I had really hoped for some creative and spicy material from this film, but the whole thing is just plain tepid and disappointing. It simply fails to live up to an anthology's potential.