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Nekromantik (1987)

Dir: Jorg Buttgereit.

 

One of the true landmarks in controversial film making, "Nekromantik" has managed to keep its sick reputation alive and still causes much love/hate debate amongst horror fans.

Robert (Daktari Lorenz) works for a firm that cleans up accident and murder scenes. They are the guys who pick up the body parts so unsuspecting passersby don't trip over someone's head. Weird Rob however has a sexual fascination with the dead and regularly steals bits of the bodies (such as the odd eyeball) and keeps them in jars in his flat. A flat that he shares with his girlfriend, Betty (Beatrice M), who also shares his twisted desires. Which is handy as it could get very awkward explaining the body parts in the fridge.

One day the 'Cleaners' are hired to remove a decomposed body and the sight of this sexy cadaver is just too much for Robert and he promptly steals it and takes it home. Betty is of course over the moon and before you can say 'what's the smell' they are getting down and (very) dirty with the dead guy. Much groping of slimy flesh follows with Robert giving great attention to the guys putrefying eyeball while Betty rides merrily on the sawn off bit of chair leg they have used to replace the corpses rotted penis. But don't pull a face, because they put a condom on the thing so that makes it healthy, ok?

But happiness in rot is cut short when Robert loses his job due to his messy work practices (little do they know!). Betty who is annoyed at his loser ways decides to leave and, executing her custody rights takes the smelly dead guy with her. Rob is distraught and soon goes even angrier than he was to begin with. A madness that will ultimately lead to murder and something rather nasty in the bedroom....

 

Jorg and his crew have created a supremely twisted little gem that has aged well (better than the smelly dead guy anyway) and still stands up as a crazed example of what can be done in low budget, home grown movie making. The effects (by Buttgereit, Dakatari and Franz Rodenkirchen), be it the mutilated crash victims in the opening or the expertly crafted corpse itself, are highly effective and work simply because the filmmakers never try to over-stretch their budget and knowledge. They have concentrated on making the effects that they know they can pull off as good as possible. A particularly effective early sequence is a grizzly autopsy scene inter-cut with the skinning and gutting of a rabbit, that sets the viewer up for the ride ahead.

And the corpse in this sick love triangle deserves another mention. None of your bodies look like they are sleeping as used in the Canadian Necrophilia film "Kissed" or the 'not had much sleep' look of the body in "Beyond the Darkness", oh no, here we have the real rotted deal. You can almost smell the thing as it's unwrapped like a macabre valentine gift and it's liquefying flesh is caressed. Rotted innards can be glimpsed through the ribcage where the thin layer of green/grey skin has rotted away. And if the lone eyeball looks a bit goofy, well at least it's put to classic exploitation use when Robert sucks it up into his mouth before plopping it back into it's socket (it was actually a pickled sheep's eye and this sucking sequence was improvised by Daktari in the heat of the moment!). What's also unusual is the way the necro sex scenes are filmed. They are shot as romantic sequences which brilliantly shows how our two leads think that this activity is normal and not a guilty pleasure.

Another stand out sequence of over the top bad taste is the dead cat and the bathtub where Rob gets up close and personal with some rather lumpy cat guts! Don't worry folks no animals were hurt in the making of this motion picture (the rabbit being killed on the rabbit farm aside, but hey, that's one for the vegetarians to worry about) and the hysterically stiff cat corpse draped above the bath is a cheesy gem.

Add the excellent music score by John Boy Walton, Hermann Kopp and Daktari to the mix (a score that is still a much loved cult item in itself and who's main love theme is so catchy it will stick in your head for ages after) and you have wonderfully depraved sequences that are uniquely off the wall.

The acting ranges from the nicely weird to the horribly amateurish; the worst being the actor who, in a tiresome, overlong sequence, accidentally shoots a pellet gun at the guy who will become their corpse. His total lack of any emotion at this event is a new low in homemade horror acting. But the leads do a good job, taking it all seriously and so never sinking the film under a flood of self-parody.

The main fault the film has in its almost total concentration on Robert during the last half. Almost all dialogue disappears and the film starts to drag (even with the relatively short running time) badly during some overly arty dream sequences. But this lull is soon over as Robert visits a trashy cinema and Buttgereit livens things up with a fantastically tacky slasher flick that Rob is meant to be watching. Horror fans will crack a sly grin at the soundtrack used as well. Yes, it's Rick Wakeman's music for "The Burning" and then the entire soundtrack from the eye/splinter sequence from Fulci's "Zombi 2 ", complete with snapping wood and Olga Karlatos's screams!
All of which brings us to the infamous, totally outrageous ending. Legendary in its bad taste, it's a sequence that once seen is never forgotten. Tacky it may be, boring it is not. All I shall say is…guys, don't try this at home.

The final image would later lead us to "Nekromantik 2" with the return of Betty and the addition of a new female character Monika (in the delightful form of Monika M this time around) who would keep the art of loving death…alive.

Watch it with someone you love!