"Nekromantik"
German indie Horror/fetish flick.
Sick, twisted, immoral, repulsive, insane, funny...these are words one can use to describe Nekromantik, but whatever your preference may be, Jorg Buttgereit's Nekromantik has somehow made it to region 1 in a pretty extensive Special Edition from Barrel Entertainment - their first DVD release so far. Lets take a look.
The Story
Sweeping away road kill is a thankless job for most people, but Rob (Daktari Lorenz) finds several perks in his morbid occupation. Seems Rob likes to take his work home with him and show it off to his girlfriend Betty (Beatrice M.). Oh did I forget to mention Rob and Betty are necrophiliacs who get off on screwing rotting corpses? Rob goes around picking up the recently deceased or whatever remains he can find and comes home to his lover for three way orgies between him, Betty and the recently departed. Yes life is good for Rob until he gets fired from his job at 'Joe's Street Cleaning Agency', bummer. His girlfriend not wanting to be around a deadbeat loser pens a goodbye note to Rob and leaves him taking the rotted remains with her, that bitch!
Shattered from this heartbreak, Rob goes a little mad, but can you blame him? The least she could've done was leave the remains right? Now with his wellspring of dead bodies dried up Rob must find alternative ways to acquire his love toys. Rob figures murder will suffice- after all, why pick up somebody else's road kill when you can make your own?
Nekromantik is a pretty sick film. When you hear so much notorious things about anything, curiosity is bound to win you over and you have to see what all the fuss is about. Nekromantik is, as I thought, an extremely weak film, which only succeeds in shocking the viewer with grotesque visuals and perverted animal violence culminating in murder and suicide. For example, there is a scene where one of the employees of Joe's Street Cleaning Agency urinates in a stall and the camera is conveniently positioned to catch all the action. Do we really need to see this on film? What kind of deviant would enjoy it? Seems as though in this case film morality is literally being thrown in the toilet, a clever statement perhaps? On the animal violence side of things there is an awful killing of a rabbit that will remind you just how sick the human mind is. There's more of course, but if this film has any merit it is its shock value so I'll not spoil it.
Nekromantik is full of disgusting displays of necrophilia; Rob and Betty are shown making love to slimy decomposed corpses which can upset the stomach. It's not really the execution of these scenes that evokes disgust but rather their suggestiveness since the effects are not all that believable and in most cases seems very phony. But for all its morbid and attempted shock value, Jorg Buttgergeit in the end has made a comedy. For what other interpretation of the characterization of Rob and Betty could there be if it's not one of comedy, a very sick comedy but a comedy nonetheless. The acting is not that great and the direction is paper thin with hardly any sense of style save for some camera effects, but this is a low budget Super 8 film so some of these grievances are understandable.
Nekromantik can be slow and dull at parts with scenes and footage, which seem completely out of place and redundant - this was an obvious effort to flesh this film out to 75 minutes. Be warned Nekromantik is not for the weak of heart or stomach and in my opinion is not worth watching, but it is one of the sickest films I've ever seen.
Image Quality
Barrel Entertainment presents Nekromantik full frame in its original 1.33:1 aspect ratio. The print used for this transfer was taken from Producer Manfred Jelinski 16mm inter-negative. The transfer barely scratches satisfactory and this is to be expected from a film like this that has been shot on Super 8. Even in the commentary Jorg Buttgergeit talks about the limitations of Super 8 and how he relied a lot on close ups due to the low resolution and grainy nature of Super 8. The colors are very washed and muted. Shots taken outside in daylight are as murky as shots filmed in interiors with hardly any bright colors to speak of, except for the occasional splash of red. The transfer is rather soft with not a lot of definition and details are thrown by the wayside, which in end is probably in the films best interest.
Nekromantik has probably never looked this good and I can only imagine how bad it's looked on video and second generation dupes, which are still being recycled on the internet. Overall Barrel Entertainment has made a good effort here, but it's clear they had little to work with.
Sound
Presented in mono Nekromantik sounds passable with some dialogue sounding low and hollow. The music score, which seems very out of place and inappropriate at times, sounds fairly good. Again with this kind of film and low production values this is probably the best Nekromantik has ever sounded or ever will sound for that matter.
Supplemental Material
Barrel Entertainment has gone all out for their release of Nekromantik, presenting a comprehensive stack of supplements, which outdo some of the recent releases of other independent distributors. Barrel Entertainment obviously put a lot of care into this release and it shows. From the well-designed menus to the packaging, this film has gotten star treatment. The supplements are divided up into two sections "Bonus Footage" and "Extras". The Bonus Footage section contains the documentaries, trailers and Jorg Buttgergeit's Super 8 Short Horror Heaven. The extras section contains some more minor supplements such as the still gallery and filmography.
The biggest supplement, and the one fans are probably most interested in, is the audio commentary with Director Jorg Buttgergeit and Rodenkirchen. The commentary is pretty good. Both have pretty heavy accents and are sometimes hard to understand, but some good behind the scenes information is revealed. Both Jorg Buttgergeit and Franz Rodenkirchen have no problem making fun of the film and the low quality nature of it. Jorg Buttgergeit also talks about the actors and actresses as well as discussing the special effects. They also talk about the rabbit-killing scene and how it fits into Rob's background as well as the cat scene and how it wasn't real, which I was glad to hear (I always figured it wasn't). They also mention that just because the Rabbit-killing scene appears in the film doesn't mean they like that sort of thing. Overall this is an excellent commentary and I liked watching the film with the commentary much more than without it.
Next in the Bonus Footage section is a Making of Nekromantik documentary. This documentary is a reworking of "Corpse Fucking Art", which was a documentary on Nekromantik. The documentary has lots of behind the scenes information and footage as well as outtakes. In addition to the documentary there's a "Nekromantik Featurette". The featurette includes interviews and narration by Director Jorg Buttgergeit and Producer Manfred Jelinski. The featurette discusses Nekromantik's creation, the importance of having the corpse look real and finding the cast. Jorg also goes over the fact Beatrice and Daktari, the two stars, couldn't stand each other. The featurette also discusses the films release and the problems it had, especially in Norway in which two copies of the film were confiscated. It's very well made with scenes from the film appearing in a little box while Jorg Buttgergeit talks about it.
My favorite supplement on this DVD though is the Super 8 short "Horror Heaven", which is basically a spoof of some classic horror films like Frankenstein,, The Mummy...as well as a pretty bizarre little short titled Cannibal Girl. It's actually pretty funny in a tongue in cheek sort of way, its production value is pretty minimal, but it is a Super 8 short so one can't expect much, but it is fun. Finally we have 5 trailers. Two are for Nekromantik, one for the sequel Nekromantik 2 and trailers for Der Todesking and Schramm.
In the "Extras" section there is a still gallery presented in montage form with about 100 black and white and color stills of the cast, crew and behind the scenes footage. You'll find many stills of the effects and corpse props. The gallery is also accompanied by the film's musical score, which plays in the background. This is one of the better s till galleries I've ever seen and it's pretty extensive. Next there's the "Odds And Ends", a section devoted to stills of the unfinished Nekromantik comic adaptation. There are also recent photos of Director Jorg Buttgergeit as well as the Nekromantik cover art that has appeared on various video releases. There is also a filmography for Jorg Buttgergeit, which features a hidden trailer for "Campus Fucking Art", which is a documentary on Nekromantik.
Final Thoughts
Well if it's been your lifelong dream to own a Special Edition DVD of Nekromantik look no further. This DVD has enough goodies on it to keep you busy for hours and even if you didn't like the film (like me) you'll still probably find them interesting. I must say in the end Barrel Entertainment has impressed me with their first release. The disc is Dual Layered comes with a two-page insert and is packaged in a nice red Keepcase and that's pretty good for a debut release. It's a shame I hate this film otherwise I'd be quite happy with it.
Rating
Image Quality - C-
Sound - C
Supplements - A
Technical Info.
DVD
Barrel Entertainment
DVD Released 06/13/2000
Running Time - 1 hour 15 minutes
Color
Region 0, NTSC
Not Rated
Full Frame 1.33:1 | 16x9: No
1 Disc Dual Layered (DVD9)
24 Chapter Stops
German Mono (English Subtitles)
DVD Status - IN PRINT
Supplements
Audio Commentary with Director Jorg Buttgereit and Co-Author Franz Rodenkirchen (phew did I get them right?)
Horror Heaven, an Early Buttgereit Super 8 short (Subtitled in English)
Nekromantik Featurette featuring Outtakes and Interviews
The Making of Nekromantik featuring Behind the Scenes footage
Still Gallery (over 100 stills)
Theatrical Trailers for Nekromantik, Nekromantk 2 and Schramm
Other Pictures:
Full & Uncut(This IS in German)
At least 20 full sources
NOTE:info and pics from
http://www.horrordvds.com/reviews/Quality unknown at this time. Still DL-ing
ed2k:
Nekromantik_filmovore.com.avi [515.84 Mb] [
Stats]
IMDb