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Nekromantik 2 (1991)

Dir: Jorg Buttgereit.

This disappointing sequel to the infamous "Nekromantik" starts with a young woman, named Monika (the hauntingly attractive Monika M), digging up the grave of Robert, the necrophile murderer who committed suicide at the end of the first film, and taking the body home with her. Monika is fascinated and ultimately turned on by death and has followed the story of Robert in the papers. She strips and caresses the body then lovingly cleans the putrefying corpse and lays it in state.

Meanwhile a young man named Mark (Mark Reeder), who has a job dubbing porn films, is stood up at a cinema and instead offers the extra ticket to Monika who he meets outside while waiting. The movie (which is a made up black and white art film called "My Dinner with Vera") has a naked couple sitting around a table on a rooftop eating eggs and talking about birds. This is obviously meant to be a dig at dull pretentious movies but director Buttgereit shows so much footage of the damn thing he turns his own movie into the exact same thing he's parodying! After this cinematic milestone, Mark takes Monika home and they strike up a relationship. Soon they are going out on dates together and end up making love.

Monika decides to dispose of Roberts corpse as her feelings for Mark grow, but her obsession with the body and with death itself, spills out into their budding relationship with horrific consequences....

 

The first "Nekromantik" was (a strange dream sequence aside) a lean, straight to the point film that tackled the grotesque subject of Necrophilia head-on and was a simple, yet highly effective piece of extreme cinema. But with the sequel, Buttgereit has made the almost fatal mistake of diverting away from the main theme of the movie, and instead gives us an unsuccessful, overly long (nearly 25 minutes longer than the original) relationship drama with the necrophilia aspect seemingly tacked on.

It all opens well enough with a back and white flashback to the first film showing Robert killing himself, edited into Monika digging up his coffin. The bizarre and highly effective music (all Buttgereit films have fascinating and off-kilter scores) creeps in and a great atmosphere is built up. But the digging sequence is nearly ten minutes long, and by the time it's over boredom is already starting to set in.

The next 20 minutes are almost dialogue free and full of annoying sequences of inactivity. The only thing that stops you from falling asleep are the edits showing Monika preparing, and in gross close up, kissing Roberts corpse and of Mark, with his female co worker (Lena Braun), dubbing the porn films. These scenes in the recording studio are genuinely amusing as they both moan and groan into a microphone in time with the sex being screened in front of them on a TV (Buttgereit livens things up a bit more here by adding some brief hardcore sequences). With Mark doing some crucial palm slapping to get the sounds of cheap sex just right! But then its dullsville for another 40 minutes (you count every one of them too).

We're treated to footage of them at the fun fair going on rides and eating ice cream. Them going to the zoo petting pony's. Them endlessly walking around gazing into space. Thankfully this tedium is broken by the sequence of Monika sawing up Roberts festering corpse which is covered in liquid putrescence. This hideous operation is shown in long and grizzly detail as Monika cuts the body up (and for once this is shown to be realistically hard to do, as she sweats and wipes the rot over her face) and places the bits into plastic bags which she dumps back into his grave. But this being a Nekromantik movie, it will come as no surprise that she keeps the head, and naturally the penis in her fridge! But things look bad for the viewer again when suddenly for no reason Monika M appears singing a song, accompanied on a piano by a creepy man with a bad ponytail and a superimposed skull spinning in the air. Much scratching of the viewers' head ensures.

In obvious desperation Buttgeriet attempts a cheap ploy to keep us awake with by having Monika and some strange friends, with Roberts head on the table as they pass around snacks, watching a video of a seal autopsy (graphic and very real footage that will sicken most viewers), before going dullsville on us again until the infamous finale. A finale that's the only thing in the film that really gets talked about, and for good reason. It's a true shocker and a sinful treat for fans of extreme horror.

There are other plus points, as with all Buttgereit films, just not enough of them. Monika M gives a low key but satisfying performance as a seemingly sweet and disarming woman who's in fact a dangerously disturbed individual. But she is given little support by the rest of the cast. Reeder is especially lifeless, even more so than the corpse. Fans of the first film will enjoy the scene where Betty (Beatrice M) appears with a shovel at Roberts's grave only to find him already gone. This is the only scene Beatrice M is in (complete with a flashback to her fiery relationship with Robert), but it's a welcome cameo. The porn dubbing is also a unique and an entertaining idea that adds some humour that the rest of the film lacks.

The effects are, once again, excellent as well. Roberts putrefying corpse is especially in close ups, disturbingly real, and the famous decapitation effect is outstanding. Never has such a shockingly realistic head removal been (to coin a phrase) pulled off. As the saw cuts into the Mans neck (as Monika rides atop his spasm racked body, blood spraying over her nakedness) he screams and gurgles as the head is messily severed, his face contorting into pain filled shock. And the image of Monika tying string around the by now dead mans penis to keep it hard as she climaxes is about as politically incorrect as you can get! Like the outrageous masturbation/knifing suicide in "Nekromantik" those viewers who are still awake to watch it will never forget this wickedly sick sequence.

So whereas most of the film is slow and pointless, this scene is truly startling and horrendously gory. It is perhaps the most graphic representation of sexual violence on film and will shock the by now almost comatose viewer into realizing just what a wasted opportunity "Nekromantik 2" ultimately was.