Dawn Breaks Behind the Eyes (2021)

"Dreamy EuroGothic"

One of my favourite films from Frightfest 2021, Kevin Kopacka's trippy hymn to 1970s EuroHorror is getting a cinema release (now) and a digital release (next February) from Fractured Visions.

We open with a smartly dressed, couple exploring the rotting country house they have inherited. There's the suggestion of a Sadean relationship between the two, both in dialogue and in the use of a whip (shades of Franco?) while every now and then we are shown some seemingly unrelated and far more lyrical imagery à la Jean Rollin. 

Half an hour in and there's what I can only describe as 'an Umberto Lenzi moment' (you'll know what it is) and then we learn that we have been watching the making of a movie. The film crew exhibit a distinctive 1970s vibe as they descend into an orgiastic, drug-fuelled party (shades of Martino's ALL THE COLOURS OF THE DARK but also Franco's SUCCUBUS). As the evening progresses it turns out that the lead players in this particular tragedy may well be the director and his screenwriter girlfriend, doomed to wander the gloomy mansion forever - or are they?

A number of films in recent years have claimed 1970s EuroHorrors for their inspiration but few, if any, have managed to nail the style and substance and overall feel as well as DAWN BREAKS BEHIND THE EYES. As well as the directors already mentioned, it's a film that's reminiscent of the work of Renato Polselli and Luigi Batzella although I can fully understand why their names aren't being used in the publicity. 

Suffice to say, if you love early 1970s EuroGothic as much as I do you'll definitely want to catch this one, possibly a couple of times to appreciate the clues in the plotting. Here's the trailer:

Kevin Kopaka's DAWN BREAKS BEHIND THE EYES is on general release at selected cinemas from Friday 3rd December 2022 and will be on digital in February 2023

A Young Man With High Potential (2018)

"Portrait of a Serial Killer - in the Making"

Originally shown in the Discovery Screen strand at last year's London Frightfest, the latest release in the Frightfest Presents series from Signature Entertainment is this grim, dispassionate, never less than fascinating piece from German director Linus de Paoli. 

Piet Carnell (Adam Ild Rohweder) is a brilliant computer sciences university student. He's also painfully shy, agoraphobic, completely socially inadequate and has no experience whatsoever of the opposite sex.

So it's a recipe for disaster when Piet's professor suggests to fellow classmate Klara (Pauline Galazaka) that she becomes his partner for a forthcoming project. Because besides being a girl, she's also attractive, vivacious, and has already been "admired from afar" by Piet.

All goes well at the beginning and the two start to get on. Just when you think our story might be veering towards something other than utter horror Klara spurns Piet's advances and by means of an accident she ends up unconscious at his place. 

       Things go from bad to worse to truly, nerve-tinglingly awful as first Piet undresses her, then gives in to his desires, with terrible consequences. But working out how to deal with what he has done is just the beginning of a long night of self-discovery for our young anti-hero.

A film that refuses to take sides but rather lets you ruminate on the outcome, A YOUNG MAN WITH HIGH POTENTIAL certainly suggests that as a result of the atrocity he commits, which then require him to face and overcome his many neuroses, Piet actually becomes better able to cope with the world at large. That message alone, along with the cold, clinical eye with which the movie observes certain proceedings, means it may be too much for some viewers, but if you're able to stay with it until the end you'll find yourself thinking about this one for long after it's over. I found it fascinating. Whether or not you now want A YOUNG MAN WITH HIGH POTENTIAL in your own head is up to you.

A YOUNG MAN WITH HIGH POTENTIAL is out now on VOD on the Frightfest Presents label from Signature Entertainment

Varieté (1925)

“Big Top Melodrama”

German film-maker E A Dupont’s smash hit 1925 silent melodrama gets a dual format release courtesy of Eureka.

Boss Huller (Emil Jannings) runs a carnival with his wife (Maly Delschaft). They have a baby. One night, a crusty old seadog comes to Boss with a mysterious girl called Berta-Marie (Lya De Putti) who has been named after the ship that brought her to port. Boss takes her in and, after witnessing several of her exotic dance routines, decides to dump his wife and child and relaunch his career as a trapeze artist with Berta.

Don't even think of stealing this man's wife

They head to the big city, where they join up with the 1920s trapeze-artist equivalent of Dave Vanian, who soon has his own designs on Berta-Marie, which she’s happy to encourage. Can any of this end well? It’s highly unlikely, especially as the movie is bookended by scenes in prison, although we don’t get to see who the prisoner is who’s telling his story until the end.

…who happens to look like this

The melodramatic tale of love and lust under the big top was a popular mainstay for all kinds of pulp entertainment, from penny dreadful short stories through to EC comic strips and beyond. It’s not surprising that Dupont’s film was such a success when it was released, and the film still stands up pretty well today. It's of interest for a number of reasons, not least that the characters that take up most of the running time are all amoral, and it's difficult to know where our sympathies (if any) are supposed to lie. The 95 minute running time hardly flags, Jannings (the Laurence Olivier of his day) gives a riveting performance and goes full Bela Lugosi for the end as he metes out his revenge. Until now I had only known him as the actor playing the lead in OTHELLO (1922) in the clip that features in the opening credits of Douglas Hickox’s THEATRE OF BLOOD (1973) but it turns out he was the winner of the very first Academy Award for best actor (he’s still the only German to have done so, apparently).

…not even if you're a trapeze artist, or the lead singer of The Damned

DP on VARIETE was Karl Freund who would go on to shoot Universal’s DRACULA (1931) and MURDERS IN THE RUE MORGUE (1932) before directing their version of THE MUMMY (1932) and MGM's brilliant MAD LOVE (1935). His style is evident here, with some interesting camera tricks and uses of multiple, kaleidoscopic imagery.

The first filmic record of unicycle hockey!

Eureka’s disc comes with three score options - one by Stephen Horne, another by Johannes Contag, and the third by a group called The Tiger Lillies which is quite different and is probably worth listening to after you’ve seen the film at least once as it's a bit distracting. You also get the American version of the film which is shorter and scratchier but has a great organ score that’s also worth a listen. You also get an image archive and new writing on the film in an accompanying booklet. 

E A Dupont's VARIETE is out on dual format DVD & Blu-ray 

from Eureka on Monday 23rd January 2017

Nekromantik 2 (1991)

Welcome to House of Mortal Cinema’s interactive movie experience designed to help YOU get the most out of your viewing choice. Today we’ll be watching Arrow’s new Region 2/B DVD & Blu-ray release of Jorg Buttgereit’s NEKROMANTIK 2. For this you will need the following:

1 A strong stomach.

2 A sense of humour.

3 The fast forward button on your remote control.

Got all of those? Great! Then away we go! Here is a list of the highlights in Mr Buttgereit’s second film about necrophilia that once again veers between the utterly disgusting and the ludicrously funny with gay abandon:

1 A pretty girl digging up a corpse in a churchyard while nice     

          music plays and we get some arty shots of snails and lizards. 

Pretty girl digging up a corpse

2 The pretty girl’s naked bottom bouncing up and down on said 

        corpse after she has brought it home, accompanied by more   

        pleasant piano music.

3 Pretty girl meets new boyfriend who has a day job dubbing    

        porn.

What all young lovers do on a first date

4 A daft black and white art house interlude in which two naked 

        Germans discuss ornithology while eating hard boiled eggs.

5 The pretty girl singing a love song to a corpse while being    

        accompanied by the German equivalent of Terry Jones’   

        insane Monty Python organist.

Time for a song!

6 Pretty girl cuts up corpse in the bath. This goes on a bit.

Bathtime does not end well. This is the tasteful still

7 Pretty girl goes to zoo with boyfriend. This goes on even 

        longer. But is less disgusting.

Less disgusting?

8 The willy in the fridge bit.

9 Pretty girl and her weird friends watch post mortem of a seal. 

        If you don’t fast forward through this you have more staying    

        power than I do.

10 Pretty girl realises she can only have meaningful relationship 

        with boyfriend if she saws his head off while having sex with 

        him.

11 “Humorous” German punchline.

12 The End.

For a zero budget daft German film Arrow could be accused of not just going the extra mile here but possibly going a few miles too far in terms of extras. You get a commentary track, a 30 minute vintage making of, a 40 minute new making of, ten minutes of the locations, a video essay on the significance of the use of Berlin in the movie, composer / actor Mark Reeder on his contribution to the score, 11 minutes of out-takes, highlights from the live performance of the entire film score, two short films  - Bloody Excess in the Leader’s Bunker and A Moment of Silence at the Grave of Ed Gein and a couple of music videos.

Arrow’s three disc set consists of Blu-ray, DVD, and CD of the film’s score (which is actually really good and almost a reason in itself to get this). So if you love NEKROMANTIK 2 you’ll want this. If you weren’t sure at the start hopefully all the above has helped you decide if you want to take the plunge. Hopefully you have all been suitably informed / warned.

Arrow are releasing Jorg Buttgereit's deliriously disgusting NEKROMANTIK 2 in a limited-edition 3 disc set on 7th December 2015. I wonder if it will sell out as quickly as the HELLRAISER set. 

Nekromantik (1988)

Where do I start with this one?

Probably in 1988, which is when I saw it for the first (and only time until now) at the Shock Around the Clock Film festival at the legendary Scala cinema in Kings Cross. In those days, festivals were all nighters, and it was probably appropriate that NEKROMANTIK was the final film, as nothing could have competed with it for shock value. So it was that I and several hundred other people were witness to Jorg Buttgereit's tale of filth and woe (and yes, necrophilia) at about six o'clock on a Sunday morning. It certainly woke us all up.

Rob (Daktari Lorenz) works for 'Joe’s Street Cleaning Agency' which specialises in tidying up the dead bodies after road traffic accidents. But Rob doesn't adhere strictly to health and safety directives, instead bringing various bits and pieces back to his squalid flat for him and his girlfriend Betty (Beatrice M) to enjoy. When a young man dies in a bizarre gardening accident (I don't think they're referencing Spinal Tap but this is such an odd film who knows) Rob brings the entire corpse home and various necrophiliac antics ensue. When Betty gets fed up with Rob and leaves, taking her dead lover with her, it's the cue for Rob to embark on an existential journey that is a mixture of arthouse and extremely uncomfortable obscene cinema as we only really get to see from European film-makers.

NEKROMANTIK is not for everyone. In fact I'd go so far as to say it's hardly for anyone. However, if such classic Euro-endurance tests as CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST, A SERBIAN FILM and THE HUMAN CENTIPEDE PARTS 1 & 2 are your cup of tea then you'll probably get something out of this one as well. Just like those movies, time has not diminished its effect - NEKROMANTIK is still as weird, disgusting and shocking as I remember it. The only difference on watching it this time was I got the sense that some of it was intended to be funny but in a way that just makes it all the more disturbing. As well as all the (faked) horrors, a rabbit gets slaughtered and skinned close to the beginning so animal lovers should beware.

Arrow's presentation of NEKROMANTIK is remarkable. In fact, I was almost as shocked by the number of extras on here as I was by the film. The three disc set includes the film on both Blu-ray and DVD. Blu-ray isn't really the medium for a grungefest shot on super 8mm, but it does look a lot better than the 'Grindhouse Presentation' that's also included here.

By the far the best of these is a hugely nostalgic documentary for those of us who saw the movie at the Scala as Alan Jones and others reminisce about the difficulty of sneaking the film in under the radar and the producer having to sleep on top of the film cans in his camper van to prevent them from being confiscated. There's also a commentary from Buttgereit and co-writer Franz Rodenkirchen, a couple of short films (Hot Love and Horror Heaven), a new interview with the director who also provides a special introduction to the film, a vintage making of, a Glasgow Q&A and a whole host of other stuff as well. Perhaps the best extra (although this wasn't provided for review) is the third disc, which is a CD of the film's soundtrack. It's quite a bouncy, jolly synthesiser score that's very 1980s while at the same time avoiding the farty burpy monotone that many sleaze efforts of the period seemed to think was de rigeur. There's also an exclusive 100 page book featuring writing on the film and the whole thing is presented in a lovely packaging with five exclusive postcards.

So there you go. I hadn't seen NEKROMANTIK for sixteen years and it will probably be another sixteen before I feel I can steel myself to watch it again. But if you're a NEKROMANTIKophile, or even just casually interested in extreme European cinema, I cannot imagine there's going to be a better or more enthusiastic presentation of this film than this.

Arrow Films have released Jorg Buttgereit's NEKROMANTIK in a special limited 3-disc dual format edition (Blu-ray and DVD) on 15th December 2014 - just in time for Christmas!