Blackest Heart

This film has to be understood in the correct context; Schlingensief did not try to make a splatter movie, he just uses elements of the splatter genre, just as in other movies he used pieces of "new German cinema", neorealism, and so on. His objective I think was to make a truthful film about the so-called German reunification, and if its weird, confusing, brutal, tasteless, and very badly acted, this only adds to its truthfulness, because that is what the "reunification" actually was like. Christoph Schlingensief made the first honest and adequate film on this event from Germany's most recent history, and up to date it remains the only one.

In "German Chainsaw Massacre" we meet a butcher family.They recognize cheap meat in the East Germans passing over the old border into the West and begin turning them into sausage.Clara fleeing the murder of her sleazy husband and the decaying East lands in the hands of butchers.She is kept alive because the daughter of the family falls in love with her."German Chainsaw Massacre" is a satirical splatter flick that offers lots of cheap gore.It's full of political overtones and owes a lot to Tobe Hooper's horror classic "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre".I enjoyed this low-budget horror comedy and you should too,if you are a fan of German gore and absurdity.

Enfant terrible Schlingensief's view on the relationship between West and East Germans (Wessies and Ossies) is a very black, trash and low-budgeted horror film in which the Ossies are massacred and eaten by the Wessies; that is the way Schlingensief sees relationships between people in general. The story (such as there is) is hard to follow; Schlingensief seems more interested in showing atmosphere. Very gory horror effects, quite some faces are beaten to mash.

There are some nice scenes, like the 5 former GDR customs officers who think the GDR still exists, but on the whole watching this film takes quite some perseverance not for the over the top horror (thàt over the top that it is hardly shocking), but for its heavy handed direction, ditto photography (very tiresome at moments), its grim view on life and lack of humour. On the other hand: to Mr. Schlingensief these four aspects may be going hand in hand, which would mean that he at least succeeded in making a very personal film. Hard core vegetarians better be ware.

Sold as a parody of the cult classic "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre," this 1990 film written and directed by Christoph Schlingensief-part of his German Trilogy, "100 Years of Adolf Hitler" and "Terror 2000"-is by far my favourite of the three.

Rather than mere parody, it's a grotesque satire, a blood-soaked critique of the anarchic chaos that consumed Germany, and particularly Berlin, after the fall of the Wall on 9 November 1989.

The film opens during the reunification ceremonies. People are cheering, bells are ringing, fireworks light up the sky.

A united crowd sings the national anthem-until we cut to a woman cleaved in half, her entrails spilling onto the ground, as a car speeds past with a couple inside singing merrily.

A nation reunited, yet instead of celebrating newfound freedom, it descends into disorder-no laws, no direction, just citizens clinging to the habits of their former lives.

Suddenly, East and West must learn to be flatmates in a world where the walls have fallen, but no one has told them how to deal with the shared trauma now exposed.

After this historical prologue, "The German Chainsaw Massacre" introduces Clara, an East German woman fed up with her life and her husband.

She leaves her home for her lover in the West-only to find herself in the hands of butchers who turn every human they find into sausages.

It couldn't, of course, be anything other than Germany's national treasure-no jokes; I love German sausages.

The natural outcome? Pure mayhem-something still vivid decades later, both for those who lived it and for those desperate to preserve a bygone way of life.

Germany remains a country haunted by the stigma of its past, still yearning to move forward while never fully escaping its ghosts.

"The German Chainsaw Massacre" is one of those films you must see to believe. It radiates that underground aura-the kind of film that feels almost forbidden.

It's not frightening in the traditional sense, but it is profoundly unsettling.

The gore is outrageous. It's cheap, yes-but so cheap that it becomes its own charm.

That's precisely what I adore about C-movies: their raw absurdity steeped in cultural and political undertones, crafted with enough chaos to create a truly visceral (in the truest sense of the word) cinematic nightmare.

This isn't horror in the conventional sense-much like a Troma production, it's not about fear but excess. It revels in gore, taboo, and discomfort. The effects are laughable, the filmmaking rough, yet it's impossible to look away.

"The German Chainsaw Massacre" may be a cinematic mess, but it's one that slices right into the heart of post-reunification madness.

This film is not disturbing, scary, thought-provoking, or even remotely funny. It's like a mash-up of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre 2 and Pink Flamingos. People run around screaming--not out of fright but rather for no apparent reason--doing and saying supposedly "outrageous" things meant to provoke shocked laughter. It is just tiresome and extremely boring.

The gore is very poorly done, in the H. G. Lewis manner. Animal innards are simply placed on top of the actors to suggest disembowelments and such. The best thing I could say about it is that it is surprisingly polished and professional looking for a one hour "art" film. What I had expected and hoped to find however was something gritty and grimy-looking, such as the original The Texas Chain Saw Massacre.