Showing posts with label sitges. Show all posts
Showing posts with label sitges. Show all posts

Sunday, October 2, 2016


A Rundown of the 13 Best Horror Movies I've Seen in the Past Year
[5 of 13]



BASKIN
(September 2015)


"You carry Hell with you at all times...

Shot over 28 nights (there were reportedly no day shots), Baskin follows five police officers on a hallucinatory and harrowing journey as they answer a call for backup, and things go sideways in the most “Oh, sh!t, we’re screwed” horror film fashion.

Following the widespread acclaim for his original 11-minute short, Istanbul-born Can Evrenol expanded it to feature length, and has given us a deeply unsettling work that relies as much on tone and mood as it does on repulsive and gory imagery.
Crediting Eli Roth for the decision to expand to feature length (after seeing the short at the Festival Internacional de Cinema Fantàstic de Catalunya--aka Sitges--Roth reportedly asked if there was a feature script version of it), Evrenol himself describes it as both “… a micro-budget arthouse shocker” and “… a glamorous, surreal, and very dark movie.”

Whatever it is, it’s disturbing and compelling and f*cked up, and eminently deserving of some ¡Q horror! love.

(Baskin OS courtesy of impawards.com.)

Sunday, April 3, 2016


¡QUÉ HORROR2016
Candidate #6

BASKIN
(September 2015)


"You carry Hell with you at all times...

Shot over 28 nights (there were reportedly no day shots), Baskin follows five police officers on a hallucinatory and harrowing journey as they answer a call for backup, and things go sideways in the most “Oh, sh!t, we’re screwed” horror film fashion.

Following the widespread acclaim for his original 11-minute short, Istanbul-born Can Evrenol expanded it to feature length, and has given us a deeply unsettling work that relies as much on tone and mood as it does on repulsive and gory imagery.
Crediting Eli Roth for the decision to expand to feature length (after seeing the short at the Festival Internacional de Cinema Fantàstic de Catalunya--aka Sitges--Roth reportedly asked if there was a feature script version of it), Evrenol himself describes it as both “… a micro-budget arthouse shocker” and “… a glamorous, surreal, and very dark movie.”

Whatever it is, it’s disturbing and compelling and f*cked up, and eminently deserving of some ¡Q horror! love.

(Baskin OS courtesy of impawards.com.)

Tuesday, October 2, 2012


A Rundown of the 13 (plus) Best Horror Movies I’ve Seen in the Past Year
[4 of 13]


RED STATE
(January 2011)


Given that the last Kevin Smith film I enjoyed without having any major issues with it was Chasing Amy, and still holding out the hope that he could once again win me over, it was with a generous amount of curiosity that I looked forward to checking out Red State, considering that it was also going to be his first “horror movie,” something that appeared to be way out of his comfort zone.
(As evidenced below on the final one-sheet, it is billed as “An Unlikely Film From That Kevin Smith.”)
Of course, by the time I finally got around to having the opportunity to see it, the whole “I’ll sell the distribution rights, oh no, let me buy them instead for a negligible fee” auction thing came and went, and it had also just been announced that the film had taken home the Best Motion Picture award at Sitges 2011, where Michael Parks (who plays cult leader Abin Cooper) was also awarded Best Actor.
Regardless of whether I agree or not with its Sitges Best Motion Picture win, I will say that it’s a very good film, quite possibly the most accomplished one of Smith’s career.*

It’s always been evident that Smith has very strong and pointed opinions about everything from geek culture to religion, a characteristic made even more evident from his appearances outside of his own film work, and while I’ve always been fond of his smaller, more intimate films like his debut feature Clerks and Chasing Amy, in Red State, he delivers a caustic tale of (as the headings under which he divides his cast’s names in the end credits roll indicate) sex, religion, and politics.
The fact that the events of Red State kick off with three horny high school kids just looking for some sex should have put me off this one; I think I’ve mentioned it in these parts before, that I have very little sympathy for film characters who wind up in deep doodoo because of sheer stupidity. Instead, Smith succeeds in drawing me into his film and keeps me there for the duration. Sure these kids are dumb and horny, but what happens to them is simply our way into the story, and it’s a grim, disquieting one.

And not only is Red State the best-looking Smith film I’ve seen (Smith on edits; DP, David Klein, who’s shot most of Smith’s films, including the Reaper pilot), it also sports the best cast Smith has ever assembled, with John Goodman; Kevin Pollak; Oscar, SAG, and Independent Spirit Award winner, Melissa Leo; the Sitges winner, Parks; and Stephen Root.
There are also other familiar faces in this like Kevin Alejandro (as with Root, a True Blood alumnus), Buffy alumnus Marc Blucas, and younger, recognizable actors, like Kyle Gallner and Michael Angarano.
In a fun bit of casting, Smith also ropes in noted casting director Deborah Aquila (instrumental in casting shows like Dexter and The Shield, and films like The Mist, One Hour Photo, and Sex, Lies, and Videotape) for a small role.

If you think Smith is only about raunchy, potty-mouthed comedy, then give Red State a look. It’s mean and nasty, but it certainly proves that Smith can step away from his comfort zone and deliver the goods.


* I have yet to see both Jersey Girl and Cop Out, so, for all I know, either of these films could whup Red State’s a$$ from here to Timbuktu and back.
Or not.

(Red State OS’ courtesy of bloody-disgusting.com and impawards.com.)

Saturday, December 31, 2011


¡QUÉ HORROR! 2012
Candidate # 3

RED STATE
(January 2011)


Given that the last Kevin Smith film I enjoyed without having any major issues with it was Chasing Amy, and still holding out the hope that he could once again win me over, it was with a generous amount of curiosity that I looked forward to checking out Red State, considering that it was also going to be his first “horror movie,” something that appeared to be way out of his comfort zone. (As evidenced below on the final one-sheet, it is billed as “An Unlikely Film From That Kevin Smith.”)
Of course, by the time I finally got around to having the opportunity to see it, the whole “I’ll sell the distribution rights, oh no, let me buy them instead for a negligible fee” auction thing came and went, and it had also just been announced that the film had taken home the Best Motion Picture award at Sitges 2011, where Michael Parks (who plays cult leader Abin Cooper) was also awarded Best Actor.
Well, not having yet seen some of its other Sitges competition, I can’t really say whether I agree with its Best Motion Picture win, but I will say that it’s a very good film, quite possibly the most accomplished one of Smith’s career.*

It’s always been evident that Smith has very strong and pointed opinions about everything from geek culture to religion, a characteristic made even more evident from his appearances outside of his own film work, and while I’ve always been fond of his smaller, more intimate films like his debut feature Clerks and Chasing Amy, in Red State, he delivers a caustic tale of (as the headings under which he divides his cast’s names in the end credits roll indicate) sex, religion, and politics.
The fact that the events of Red State kick off with three horny high school kids just looking for some sex should have put me off this one; I think I’ve mentioned it in these parts before, that I have very little sympathy for film characters who wind up in deep doodoo because of sheer stupidity. Instead, Smith succeeds in drawing me into his film and keeps me there for the duration. Sure these kids are dumb and horny, but what happens to them is simply our way into the story, and it’s a grim, disquieting one.

And not only is Red State the best-looking Smith film I’ve seen (Smith on edits; DP, David Klein, who’s shot most of Smith’s films, including the Reaper pilot), it also sports the best cast Smith has ever assembled, with John Goodman; Kevin Pollak; Oscar, SAG, and Independent Spirit Award winner, Melissa Leo; the Sitges winner, Parks; and Stephen Root. There are also other familiar faces in this like Kevin Alejandro (as with Root, a True Blood alumnus), Buffy alumnus Marc Blucas, and younger, recognizable actors, like Kyle Gallner and Michael Angarano. In a fun bit of casting, Smith also ropes in noted casting director Deborah Aquila (instrumental in casting shows like Dexter and The Shield, and films like The Mist, One Hour Photo, and Sex, Lies, and Videotape) for a small role.

If you think Smith is only about raunchy, potty-mouthed comedy, then give Red State a look. It’s mean and nasty, but it certainly proves that Smith can step away from his comfort zone and deliver the goods.


* I have yet to see both Jersey Girl and Cop Out, so, for all I know, either of these films could whup Red State’s a$$ from here to Timbuktu and back.
Or not.

(Red State OS’ courtesy of bloody-disgusting.com and impawards.com.)

Sunday, July 5, 2009

VINYAN (August 2008)


VINYAN
(August 2008)


Paul and Jeanne Bellmer (Rufus Sewell and Emmanuelle Béart) are a couple living in Thailand, still reeling from the loss of a child to a recent tsunami. But when a brief glimpse on a DVD offers the tantalizing hope that, just maybe, their son is still alive, the couple goes on a trying, soul-torturing odyssey to recover that which has been forcibly taken from them.

That’s Fabrice Du Welz’s Vinyan in a nutshell, and it’s another film from the Belgian writer/director that stretches the boundaries of the modern horror film.


As with Du Welz’s Calvaire, Vinyan is endurance cinema that doesn’t travel the usual Grand Guignol route, instead focusing on the mental and emotional tortures visited upon its unfortunate protagonists.
Anchoring the production are the raw, turbulent performances by Sewell and Béart, whose Bellmers are a husband and wife severely damaged by their loss.
Guilt and grief weigh them down, Jeanne struggling to retain the belief that she will see her son alive again, while Paul can do nothing except stand by her.


Largely eschewing the blood-and-guts school of thought, Vinyan finds much of its horror in the minefield of emotions that lies between individuals who’ve experienced the brutal lashings of cruel fate.
Amidst the turmoil of love and loss, Du Welz mines for the existential terror that dwells in the thin line separating hope from delusion.

Which is not to say that Vinyan is completely bloodless. It has its visceral moments as well, but it’s in the sweat-soaked, rain-drenched desperation, in the fragile mental state of the bereaved, that the narrative finds its most compelling elements.


Oh, and just so you know it isn’t all weighty matters at hand here, it’s also got Julie Dreyfus (Kill Bill’s luscious Sofie Fatale), and one Petch Osathanugrah looking like a crazy-a$$ anime character come to flesh-and-blood life.

And it’s shot by Benoit Debie, who also shot Calvaire for Du Welz, as well as Gaspar Noe’s infamous Irreversible. (There’s a seedy, neon-drenched, handheld sequence early in Vinyan that actually elicits vague echoes of Irreversible.)

What more could you want?


Once described by Du Welz as “a mix of The Brood by [David] Cronenberg and [Nicolas Roeg’s] Don’t Look Now,” Vinyan is a disturbing descent into the netherworld born from the anguish of loss.
It’s a potent sophomore effort from Du Welz that further solidifies his stature as a director willing and eager to test the limits of the cinematic envelope.
One wonders what could be in store should he decide to rip the envelope wide open…


Parting shot: Vinyan went up against the likes of Sean Ellis’ The Brøken, Kim Ji-woon’s Joheunnom nabbeunnom isanghannom (The Good, the Bad, the Weird), and Pascal Laugier’s Martyrs, for Best Film at Sitges 2008, though ultimately, Jennifer Lynch’s Surveillance took home the big prize.

(Vinyan French OS courtesy of impawards.com; images courtesy of carpenoctem.pl.)

Tuesday, May 12, 2009


THE BRØKEN
(Review)



Now, given that great horror movie moment in Cashback (review in Archive), I was stoked to hear that Sean Ellis was taking on some weird sh!t in his follow-up, The Brøken.
Ask yourself this: what if, one day, you were to see yourself drive past you in your own car? What would you do?
It’s a situation radiologist Gina McVey (Lena Headey) finds herself faced with in The Brøken, and her response to this phenomenon is the lynchpin which drives this excellent and chilling sophomore feature from Ellis.


The questions are obvious: is this actually happening in objective reality, and if so, what is its nature? Or is Gina just plain nutters?
Since The Brøken is the sort of film best seen knowing as little as possible about it beforehand, I won’t go any further beyond saying that though we do see the nature of the bizarre goings-on as the film unspools, there are no real verbal expository bits, which we usually see in Hollywood horror; note how The Ring works out how to properly explain what we’re seeing on the screen, while Ringu pretty much just goes for the atmosphere and the scares, without really belabouring the whys and wherefores.
So, while we do get a sense of the nature and mechanics of the horror here, there is no grand underscoring, which, in this case, makes the end result—as with Ringu—that much more effective.


Ellis reunites with some significant Cashback personnel like Angus Hudson (cinematographer), Scott Thomas* (editor), and Guy Farley (composer), to brilliant effect, presenting us with a tight, elegantly constructed chiller.
Aside from being a great piece of horror cinema, The Brøken also plays—curiously enough—like an indictment of two recent films, both remakes, both reviewed here at the Iguana.
I won’t mention which films those are, of course, so as to keep The Brøken’s central premise a mystery—you’ll know them anyway once you’ve seen what Ellis has achieved here.
Ellis succeeds in doing, with a tremendous and confident flourish, what those films so clearly failed to do: present us with an involving, creepy, and ultimately disconcerting narrative that plays on certain common fears.
Check out The Brøken, and witness the continued growth of writer/director Sean Ellis, a bright new star in the British cinematic firmament.


* It should be noted that Thomas was also the editor on Philip Ridley’s excellent The Reflecting Skin.

Parting shot: Though nominated at Sitges 2008 for Best Film, The Brøken ultimately lost to Jennifer Lynch’s Surveillance. (Hudson, however, did win for Best Cinematography.)

Parting shot 2: It’s interesting to note that Rick Astley (and I’m assuming this is the Rick Astley) is sent off “A Special Thank You” in the end credits.
Hurm…


(The Brøken OS and images courtesy of beyondhollywood.com.)

Monday, October 20, 2008


THE FALL
(Review)


All right. Full disclosure.
I love Tarsem’s The Cell. It has its flaws, yes, but it’s got a whole lot of amazing, noteworthy stuff going for it.
There’s Howard Shore’s score, there’s Eiko Ishioka’s costumes, and of course, Tarsem’s very particular visual flair.
So it was that in the wake of The Cell, I began to actively track his possible feature film work. There was a moment in time when his name was associated with the then-in development Constantine, though that ultimately didn’t happen, due, in part, to what he fondly calls “this autistic child of mine,” The Fall.
And now, here we are, some four years and 24 countries later (the story behind the making of the film is equally as interesting as the film itself), and that “autistic child” is now ready to receive guests…


Following a haunting opening credits sequence in which many clues to the subsequent narrative may be found, we find ourselves in Los Angeles, once upon a time (or the early 1920’s, take your pick), as the paths of 5-year old Alexandria (an impressively unaffected Catinca Untaru) and injured Hollywood stuntman Roy Walker (Pushing Daisies’ Lee Pace), cross due to a misdirected message.
What follows is a tender friendship born out of necessity, a poignant celebration of the power of storytelling, and a breathtaking display of Singh’s artistry and passion.
Those who may have mistakenly written off the baroque imagery of The Cell as a barrage of hollow, MTV-styled trifles, would be well-advised to seek out the heartbreaking wonders of The Fall.


Helping Tarsem author this astounding piece of cinematic wonder are a returning Ishioka (who first impressed me deeply with her work on Paul Schrader’s Mishima, and then blew me away with her Oscar-winning efforts on Francis Ford Coppola’s Bram Stoker’s Dracula), first-time feature cinematographer Colin Watkinson, editor Robert Duffy (who’d also worked on The Cell), production designer Ged Clarke, and composer Krishna Levy (also responsible for the music of François Ozon’s Huit Femmes).
And of course, the central performances of Pace and Untaru, which anchor the narrative in a very human space, giving the film and its fantastic visuals, the beating heart any good story requires.
Many of today’s crop of feature directors with their roots in music videos and adverts seem much too preoccupied with framing the pretty pictures without paying enough attention to the narrative. With The Fall, Tarsem safely joins the likes of Mark Romanek, David Fincher, and Spike Jonze, as directors who are as much storytellers as they are visualists. (Incidentally, Fincher and Jonze are producers on The Fall, “presenting” the film to us, its eager audience.)


With his autistic child, Tarsem took home, not only a Crystal Bear from last year’s Berlin International Film Festival, but also the award for Best Film from Sitges, considered by some as the Cannes of genre film.
The Fall is a moving, breathtaking tale about the unbridled, impressionable imagination of the young, and how reality and fiction can bleed into each other in a child’s mind.
It’s also about stories, as both lifeline and currency. It’s about their mutability and elasticity, of their organic nature; how the listener can shape the story even as it unfolds. How, in the end, the story is as much the listener’s as it is the storyteller’s, and how the listener can, in influencing the story, also influence the storyteller in turn.
It’s a daring and wondrous piece of work, The Fall, and anyone who loves stories (as any film geek should), really does need to see this.


Parting shot: The Living and the Dead’s Leo Bill is here as Charles Darwin, as you’ve never seen him before…
Really.

(The Fall OS courtesy of impawards.com [design by The Arterie]; images courtesy of moviereporter.net and premiere.com.)

Monday, September 24, 2007






reVIEW (24)
LOS SIN NOMBRE
(THE NAMELESS) [1 of 3]

In light of the upcoming [Rec], co-directed by Jaume Balaguero (with Paco Plaza), I thought to take a look back at Balaguero’s past films. We begin with Los Sin Nombre.

The year is 1999, and even as the seeds for a paradigm shift in cinematic horror are beginning to flower in audience reactions to Hideo Nakata’s Ringu, another horror revolution, this one less overt though just as important, is taking place in Spain, one of its leading proponents: Jaume Balaguero.

Based on Ramsey Campbell’s novel, The Nameless, Los Sin Nombre opens with Bruno Massera (Karra Elejalde), a policeman whose Missing Persons case leads him to the uncovering of a young girl’s mutilated corpse. Apparently, it’s the six year old girl he’s been looking for, Angela Gifford, and it’s his unwanted duty to inform the girl’s parents, Marc (Brendan Price) and Claudia (Emma Vilarasau, who won two Best Actress awards for the role) that their daughter is now gone.
Though all identifiable marks on the body (fingerprints, teeth, and the like) have been destroyed, Angela’s bracelet is found at the scene, and the case is closed.
Flash forward five years later, and Claudia, now separated from Marc, gets a call, allegedly from Angela, pleading for help. Claudia then enlists the aid of Bruno—who’s just quit the force due to some personal matters—to help her get to the bottom of the mystery.

Los Sin Nombre is an impressive feature film debut by Jaume Balaguero. Surrounding himself with a crack team which includes Carles Cases (original score) and the killer cinematographer/editor tag team of Xavi Gimenez and Luis De La Madrid (who would go on to win awards for their work on Los Sin Nombre*, and, along with Cases, work with the director once more on his second feature Darkness), Balaguero brings this disturbing portrait of the perversion of the innocent and the insidious nature of evil—a theme revisited in Darkness—to the screen with a sure and steady hand.
From the cleverly edited title sequence to its far-from-happy ending, Los Sin Nombre casts a riveting spell on the viewer, as we are plunged, along with Claudia and Bruno, into this dark world of cults and missing children.

As noteworthy a debut as it is, Los Sin Nombre is not without its flaws though, particularly in the character of Quiroga (Tristan Ulloa; Abre Los Ojos), a reporter for a parapsychology magazine who becomes embroiled in the mystery surrounding Claudia and her daughter. Introduced about a third of the way into the film’s running time, the character isn’t given enough screen time to convince the audience of his motivation for risking his job and health in his decision to pursue the sinister matter. Ostensibly, it’s because he’s sick and tired of writing about faux occult rubbish and wants to get to the truly hairy stuff, but that doesn’t really come across. He seems more a narrative appendage, to help move the plot along, than an actual person.
In addition, the film may also move somewhat slowly, for those unwilling to settle into its web of anxiety and dread, which oftentimes reduces to a simmer, but never entirely goes away.

Ultimately, Los Sin Nombre may not be perfect, but it’s nonetheless an arresting debut for Balaguero, and is an excellent warm-up act for his subsequent English-language feature, Darkness.

* Among the many awards Los Sin Nombre won in the year 2000, were the CEC Award for Best Editing and the Sitges (Catalonian International Film Festival) award for Best Cinematography.

(The Nameless OS and third image courtesy of filmaxinternational.com; DVD cover art courtesy of amazon.com.)

Friday, June 1, 2007




ROHTENBURG
(aka GRIMM LOVE)
(Review)

Katie Armstrong (Felicity herself, Keri Russell) is an American graduate student in Germany, whose chosen thesis subject is the case of Oliver Hartwin (Thomas Kretschmann, most widely known for his role as Captain Englehorn in Peter Jackson’s King Kong), who found a willing victim in Simon Grombeck (Thomas Huber, seen in the live action Aeon Flux), and ate him.
This is the chillingly gruesome premise of Martin Weisz’s first feature film, Rohtenburg (Grimm Love in the US, where it is currently on the festival circuit), a disturbing portrait of that dark territory where the positive, life-affirming traits of love, collide with the self-destructive tendencies of the disturbed and the deranged.
After establishing himself firmly in the commercial and music video worlds, Weisz delivers a solid and controversial debut, which ended up getting banned in Germany.

Relying largely on flashbacks, we accompany Katie on her journey of discovery as she travels the footpaths and backroads of Oliver’s and Simon’s lives, to perhaps better understand what led them to that place and time where one allowed the other to eat him, in order to consummate their love.
And with the largely chronological nature of the flashbacks, it quickly becomes apparent that the script by T.S. Faull is moving inexorably towards Katie’s viewing of the video Oliver shot of the death of Simon, an act that will perhaps allow her to fill the hole in her life left by some undisclosed loss. Katie believes that if she can somehow come to understand the truth behind that singular confluence where Oliver and Simon found each other, then perhaps she can come to grips with her own personal darkness.

With haunting music by Steven Gutheinz and the bleak, cold beauty of Jonathan Sela’s cinematography*, Rohtenburg is a riveting descent into the damaged lives of lonely, scarred individuals, who are only really yearning for that one particular other who can make them feel safe, and whole, who can understand them completely, who can look into their souls and not flinch from the abyss that waits there.
With strangely similar family backgrounds (estranged father, mentally unstable mother), Oliver and Simon seem like nothing so much as mirror selves, merely waiting for fate to allow them to see the other’s reflection, and to let them heal each other in the dark, ghoulish manner which they desire.

Kretschmann is hypnotic as the schizophrenic Oliver, who embraces the macabre urges that roil inside him, who, in his youth, only ever experienced giving—in his round-the-clock caring for his mother—can now really only take, to satisfy the child perpetually starved of affection. (His plea for more willing victims over the internet is simply the child in the candy shop, demanding more sweets.)
Huber meanwhile, is the sad and desperate picture of the secret victim, who tries to maintain a normal relationship with lover Felix (Marcus Lucas), while trawling the net in the early morning hours, visiting websites like the Cannibal Cantina, to sate his deviant hungers. And while Oliver’s need is to absorb, Simon’s is to be absorbed, to be completely subsumed—and more pointedly, consumed—by the act of love. (One of the most disturbing moments of the film—and there are many—is when Simon tells a male prostitute what he wants done to his penis.)
And as clearly warped and twisted as these psyches are, when they meet over the internet, there is a mutual, instinctual understanding that they have indeed found their other. It is one of Rohtenburg’s triumphs that the flurry of emails back and forth between Oliver and Simon is both a heartfelt exchange and a wildly disturbing taste of the extremes to which some people will go to find love.

And as witness to this bizarre relationship, Russell is effective as the audience’s proxy, also damaged and scarred by life (though perhaps not as much as either Oliver or Simon), trying to scry for the truth in the shadowed mirror of a love soured by death, of a union where eros and thanatos lay in each other’s arms, whispered sweet nothings into each other’s ears, then proceeded to sink their teeth into each other’s haunches.

Clearly, Rohtenburg is not to everyone’s tastes (pun most definitely intended). The material is decidedly dark and morbid.
But it is also imbued with a Gothic lyricism that never allows the film to become sordid and tawdry in the way other movies of the bizarre from last year—notably Terry Gilliam’s Tideland and Gyorgy Palfi’s Taxidermia—are.
While other films seem more content to repulse and revolt, Rohtenburg’s aim is to disturb and provoke. Where is the line that separates right from wrong where love is concerned? Consenting adults, after all. And these are the people their pathologies have made them into. This is their understanding of “love.” What right does society have to say otherwise?

Perhaps the saddest note in all this though, is the fact that Weisz went from horror with significant subtext to The Hills Have Eyes 2 (review in Archive: April 2007), exactly the sort of movie whose only real purpose is to repulse and revolt. Given what he achieved in Rohtenburg, I can only hope The Hills Have Eyes 2 was an aberration, and that his next film will have as much, ahem, to chew on, as Rohtenburg does.

* Jonathan Sela’s excellent cinematography can also be seen in John Moore‘s remake of The Omen, and in the upcoming film adaptation of Clive Barker’s Midnight Meat Train.

Parting shot: Rohtenburg earned Wiesz the Best Director nod at the 39th Sitges International Film Festival (Europe’s biggest fantasy-horror fest). It also snagged the Best Actor award, shared between Kretschmann and Huber, and Best Cinematography for Sela.

Parting shot 2: Rohtenburg is inspired by the real life case of the Metzgermeister (“Master Butcher”), Armin Meiwes. It was Meiwes’ complaint that his “personality rights” had been violated that resulted in the German ban.

(Rohtenburg and Grimm Love OS’s courtesy of impawards com; film image courtesy of bilder.filmstarts.de.)