Nekromantik

The Devil Says

See It

(If you've been getting necrophilic urges, but don't want to act on them)

I love German cinema. Where else can I find movies featuring necrophilia? No, that wasn't rhetorical, I really want to know where else I can find them. I've sent minor devils all over the world and they came back empty handed. Sure there are some films where necrophilia is hinted at or is symbolic. That's not what I'm talking about. I'm referring to full human-on-corpse action. Yeah. According to my minions, features with women straddling rotting flesh and men getting some from babes who really can't say no just aren't available—except for Nekromantik (and its even more chewy sequel).

So, this is an easy movie to recommend, because it's the only thing out there for all you corpse-fuckers. If you want to get yourself excited for a wild night at the cemetery, or you've been dreaming of licking oozing  bile and want masturbatory material, then this is the only game in town. Unfortunately, Nekromantik isn't much of a game since it is hardly supportive of the lifestyle. The only people who will be able to stomach it are those who are attracted to decomposing flesh, but it paints that target audience as deranged fools with little hope of happiness.

The hero of the piece is Rob. He works for a street cleaning company. Apparently in Germany, when someone dies in a traumatic manner, the body is left wherever it fell until street cleaners stuff it into a plastic bag. I guess they must be really low on coroners. Rob, being really fond of body parts, has been taking bits home and saving them in jars as aphrodisiacs for him and his hot girlfriend, Betty. So, when the chance appears to take an entire decomposing body, he leaps at it, and soon Rob and Betty are having a three-way with their new, gooey friend. But all is not well in paradise, and surprisingly, that's not a reference to the diseases and funguses they've been sticking in their orifices. You see, Rob is a loser in general and none to popular at work, so when he leaves his overalls unwashed in a locker to stink up the joint, he's tossed out on his ear. Betty realizes that without a job he can't bring home any more dead play-things, so she's out the door with the stiff. Ah, poor Rob.  What can he do? Kill a cat? Pay a prostitute to have sex with him in a cemetery? Slice off the top of a guy's head with a shovel? Yup, he does all those and more.

(And rotting baby makes three)

I've got to give points to Nekromantik for being very upfront about what the viewer is in for. If your sickened by it, you have no one to blame but yourself. It starts with a woman pissing by the side of the road, her panties pulled down into the mud. A few minutes later, a gruesome car wreck results in the top half of her body lonely for the bottom half. Add in that the stated theme is necrophilia, and you have no right to complain that this is "disgusting."

Unfortunately, Nekromantik is not that interesting. The main necrotic sex scene is shot is faux art house fashion with blurs and frames superimposed over each other. The gory ending is marred by a ludicrously fake phallus. That leaves character and plot to entertain, and both of those are far too thin. The 8mm film stock doesn't help either. Yeah, there are plenty of worse looking flicks in the underground film scene, but creating a movie that looks like crap shouldn't be anyone's goal. The film also dampens any potential Surrogate Cruelty by offering up real cruelty. As I've mentioned in my reviews of Italian cannibal movies, the joy of Surrogate Cruelty is that it's a surrogate, a proxy. It is a completely safe way to enjoy things that appeal to your most basic urges but find morally ambiguous at best. It's great to cheer on murder, rape, and torture in film because it's all fake. The murder victim is alive, the rape victim is untouched, and the torture victim feels fine. That safety factor vanishes when there's actual pain and death, and that's what we've got here. Purely for shock value, a rabbit has its throat cut, is bled to death, and then skinned. At least it wasn't done for the movie. The scene was shot at a "rabbit ranch" where the animals are killed everyday. In a documentary on meat production or how animals are treated, this footage would be reasonable, but in a narrative, it is out of place.

(It's like licking a rotting ice cream cone)

Not that Nekromantik doesn't have its moments. The build up to cadaver-loving is a hoot, with Betty jamming a short segment of metal pipe into the carcass's groin so she has something to ride. Being a safe sex girl, she carefully puts a condom over the end of the jutting tube, because she wouldn't want to come in contact with anything unsavory. It's pretty funny stuff.

If you strain, you can impose a number of themes upon the film. None of them have any real strength because there isn't enough substance onscreen. Once could claim Rob's "quest" reflects everyone's search for real communication. Rob's visit to a theater showing a graphic horror flick could imply that in someway, all humans are necrophiliacs. The only message that has meat is the perhaps unintentional argument for vegetarianism. While Rob and Betty happily chow down on a juicy dinner, the equally juicy corpse, hung on the wall,  drips ichor onto the floor. It is difficult to see any difference between what is on their plate and what is pooling on the linoleum. With several other scenes of human meat and the rabbit, might I suggest a nice salad after viewing.

Sins (What does this mean?)

Pride Not much Pride on display. Rob could use some, but I think it's a bit late for that.
Sloth Rob and Betty do lay around a lot...
Avarice Betty wants more money to buy more dead things. Hey, if her Avarice gets her away from Rob, that's a good thing.
Gluttony Rob and Betty eat, and if you're not turned on by black dripping bodies, you may never want to eat again.
Aesthetics Nada. 
Surrogate Cruelty Far more gore than violence, but any fun is wiped away by a shot of a rabbit actually being killed.
Thought Maybe it's a good time to add more vegetables to your diet.
Humor I found Betty running her tongue over the putrid skull hysterical. If your sense of humor doesn't run in that direction, this may not be the movie for you.
Lust Beatrice Manowski shows off her tits and ass. If you're a necrophiliac, you'll be able to enjoy some corpse licking, fondling, and fucking, though much of it is hard to see.

Buy It

 

Film Info

Director: Jörg Buttgereit

Producer: Manfred Jelinski

Writers: Jörg Buttgereit, Franz Rodenkirchen

Cast: Daktari Lorenz, Beatrice Manowski

Runtime: 75 min

1987

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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