Fleisch Ist Fleisch

Year: 2000

Director: Stefan Ruzowitzky

Cast: Franka Potente, Benno Fürmann, Anna Loos

Run Time: 1 hour 43 minutes

MPAA Rating: R

Once the slasher film left the 80's, it went to a very strange place. It died twice during the decade itself (once in 1983 and once in 1989) then lay dormant, rattling around in Direct to Video Hell until Scream dragged it kicking and screaming from its shallow grave in 1996. Thus was the beginning of the age of postmodern meta humor, take it or leave it. By the turn of the century, it was pretty uncool to be a straightforward slasher film.

In America, that is.

While I would hesitate to call the 2000 German flick Anatomy (aka Anatomie) a pure slasher film, it certainly approaches its material (a hybrid that bridges the gap between slasher and torture porn with a little bit of cult thriller thrown in for taste) with a sense of gravity that the Hollywood slashers had lost in the tide. 

Not that "gravity" means "no exploitation." This is the slasher genre we're talking about.

Pretty understandably, Anatomy is all about the human body: Young college student Paula Henning (Franka Potente of the terrific Run Lola Run) is the top med student in her class. When she is sent to a  special summer program at a prestigious Heidelberg university, she is ready to buckle down and study harder than she ever has. The only problem is, her classmates are less concerned with the bodies on the slabs than they are with each other's.

Her roommate Gretchen (Anna Loos) is a bit of a woman about town, juggling hunky but sensitive RA Hein (Benno Fürmann) and the surprisingly buff nerd Phil (Holger Speckhahn), and her classmate Caspar (Sebastian Blomberg) won't rest until he can rub his weird soul patch all over her. To make her distraction even worse, she discovers that the university may be run by an ancient secret society known as the anti-Hippocrates: a sect which illegally experiments on still-living humans and turns them into plasticine exhibits with a fast-acting preserving agent called Promidal.

You'll never look at the Bodies exhibit the same way again.

Anatomy is, on the surface, one of the most average horror flicks ever conceived. Its pretty, twenty-something cast is dispatched in gruesome ways but the gore is kept offscreen as much as possible, there's a sumptuous smorgasbord of fake scares, and a series of third act reversals spin the film 180 degrees so many times that it gets dizzy and collapses, the killer is still alive, quip, quip, and roll credits. But if you grab your scalpel and forceps and peel back the surface layer, there's some really interesting structures hiding underneath. Let's get to dissecting!

Adrenal System: The film is full of shallow, airbrushed scare sequences, but plenty of the rest is mighty chilling. The film's use of the fictional drug Promidal is perhaps its most effective invention, because it allows for a series of scenes where people fight their own stiffening bodies to try and find a way to survive. Also, the props in the body exhibit are exquisitely manufactured pieces of gorgeous grue, and a library scene in the third act uses the claustrophobic shelves to nail the audience to their seats, redeeming itself for its somewhat anticlimactic act 2 break, which mightily deflates the tension in order to allow Paula to take a train ride and find out a secret about her grandfather, who used to work at the university. Needless to say, it's no big surprise and we could have found that out in a 30 second montage instead of a five minute sequence.

But I digress. There is certainly enough material in Anatomy that works at a gut level to keep it lively and entertaining throughout.

Skeleton: The unequivocal best (and most consistent) elements of the entire film are the production design and the cinematography. The anatomy hall is given an imposing grandeur with slick, faceless metal walls that threaten to engulf everything within them, working with the camera to create immensely clean, precise, flowing images that are almost scientifically perfect.

Just like Hein's bone structure.

Heart: The Germans aren't exactly known for their humorous stylings, but the comic heart of Anatomy is top notch. The interactions between the students provide a warmhearted comic relief, with several preternaturally well balanced one-liners, my favorite of which is, "Do me a favor and let me know the next time you take your clothes off." That one is going straight into my repertoire.

Sex Organs: What the Germans are known for, however, is their unconventional sexuality, which Anatomy delivers in spades. I'll have to check with the film historians on this one, but I'm pretty sure this is the first time any two characters have hooked up on an autopsy table that was just used to dissect a ruptured spleen. I swear, nothing turns on Gretchen and her cronies more than the prospect of some illicit bangers and mash next to a couple dozen goggle-eyed corpses.

On top of its unerringly interesting approach to sex, Anatomy is also remarkably feminist. The Slut character turns out to be the top in her class, the women are fully in control of their sex lives (although the sniveling, hypersensitive men can't exactly handle it), and the film shows nary a single wanton breast, instead focusing on getting its male characters in and out of their shirts as often as possible. In this way it reminded me quite positively of Girls Nite Out, the single best purveyor of man meat in all of slasherdom.

My absolute favorite scene in the film is when a girl finally sleeps with her long-awaited suitor... to pass the time before a meeting.

Go women!

This is the part where I thank Sergio for buying me Anatomy and its sequel to fill out his Amazon cart. (And get him off my back for not mentioning him a lot recently. I guess anonymity isn't as important as I thought. Hi Sergio!)

Brain: Although the third act reveals never entirely makes sense, Anatomy does have a keen brain hiding in its skull cavity. The throbbing undercurrent of the film is of generational discord. Paula wants to be a doctor to prove herself to her famous physician grandfather, ignoring her father's warnings about becoming too concerned with professional success. As she discovers the dark secrets behind the university and the city of Heidelberg, she realizes that the ancient atrocities committed in the town have never truly died away.

As Paula attempts to uncover the past and save lives in the present, she learns that there's no escaping history. The entire film is plagued by the sins of a past generation, mirroring the country itself, which will never be able to shake off the ghost of the Third Reich. It's really rather poetic and it adds a thoughtful, deeper meaning to what otherwise could have been an entirely boilerplate affair.

Grey's Anatomy with more stabbing, if you will.

At the end of the day, nobody is going to be busting out their Anatomy disc at parties or anything, but the film is a decent millennium slasher thrill, and worth checking out for medium-strength fans of the genre.

Champion Dialogue: "Don't worry, those red spots are only pubic lice. You'll be fine!"

Body Count: 7

1. Patient #1 has his flesh flayed.
2. David is stabbed with a scalpel.
3. Phil is stabbed to death.
4. Gretchen is injected with Promidal and flayed.
5. Grombek's throat is slit. 
6. Caspar's Roommate is injected with Promidal.
7. Hein is electrocuted and stabbed in the heart.

TL:DR: Anatomy is a generic modern slasher thriller, but it has enough heart and soul to make it a thoroughly interesting watch.
Rating: 6/10
Word Count: 1293

Census Bloodbath: Suffering Is Good For Pleasure

Year: 1981

Director: Jesús Franco

Cast: Olivia Pascal, Christoph Moosbrugger, Nadja Gerganoff

Run Time: 1 hour 24 minutes

MPAA Rating: R

European slasher films are something special. Whether they're top shelf fare like Suspiria and Twitch of the Death Nerve or low rent knock-offs like Trhauma and Murder Syndrome, there's always a spark that dances in the eyes of the Eurotrash flicks. Perhaps its just that I've grown used to the Western modes of storytelling or that I allow the language barrier to gloss over simple mistakes, but whatever it is, these films are truly, undeniably different.

1981's Bloody Moon (AKA Die Säge des Todes) is one of these films. What would have otherwise been an unremarkable smear on a forgotten footnote of cinema history is double-filtered through the addled mind of Spanish sleazemeister Jesús Franco and the resources of West Germany, then slathered with the most literally transcribed, un-emphatic dub ever created by stoned Americans trapped overnight in a recording studio with nothing else to do.

It's not a film you'll want to take home to mama, but it's unique in that ineffable way that the American films of the time couldn't capture. It's certainly not better than the bulk of its peers, but its logistical missteps, overwrought dialogue, and surreal scene structure at least create an indelibly memorable experience.

Case in point.

Bloody Moon takes place on a remote resort in Spain, which one Professor Alvaro (Christoph Moosbrugger) has converted into a language school. The estate is the home of Countess Maria Gonzales (María Rubio), an elderly spinster in a wheelchair. Although her niece Manuela (Nadja Gerganoff) takes care of the place, she has bequeathed her fortune to her nephew Miguel (Alexander Waechter), who has a deformed face (it's burned, I guess, but it just looks like spilled oatmeal crusted around his forehead) and the unfortunate quirk of murdering women who won't sleep with him.

As the new crop of students arrives for the semester, late arrival Angela (Olivia Pascal) begins to suspect that a mysterious prowler is stalking her and her friends. There's barely enough characterization of the women in this film to even qualify them as Meat rather than Wallpaper, but they are Inga (Jasmin Losensky), a whiny, unlucky in love type - think the beginning of a Jennifer Aniston movie, Eva (Ann-Beate Engelke), a blonde, and Laura (Corinna Drews), a blonde who dies wearing cheetah print hot pants.

After a series of gruesome murders, Angela must rush to discover the identity of the killer. Is it Miguel, who is always hanging around, peeping into windows? Is it Manuela, who seduces her brother and leers up at the moon topless every night? (See? European films are something special.) Alvaro, who is having trouble paying his rent and is so despicably lazy that his "school" is just a set of booths with headphones where the students listen to language tapes? Antonio (Peter Exacoustos), the resident tennis stud/gardener with a hive of jealous women orbiting around him? Or is it Paco (Otto Retzer), the groundskeeper who always seems to be quietly hallucinating in the background while handling sharp objects?

Well, that's for me to know and you to find out, but rest assured the central mystery draws from the best and brightest tropes of the giallo film. A suspect list of biblical proportions? Check. An elderly stateswoman with a dangling inheritance? Check. A nonsensical plot that exists only insofar as it is scooting helpless women toward their untimely demise? Check, check, and check.

I've learned so much about garden tool nomenclature while watching these films.

As a low budget Eurotrash slash picture, do I even need to tell you that Bloody Moon isn't scary to the slightest degree? Sure, there's sequences that drum up some semblance of a gut feeling, but these are generally through the defiance of expectations, like "Deary me, they killed a real snake. Someone call PETA." or "Yeah, I legitimately didn't expect them to run that child over with a car." They even manage to screw up the perennial Spring-Loaded Cat scare, making our fateful feline nose open a door and then somehow leap up at the unsuspecting victim from floor level. 

It's cartoonishly terrible, but at least this allows the film to lean into the curve and embrace its campiness. The actors chew the plaster off the walls, the music sounds like either Pac-Man's death throes or Frankie Avalon and Ritchie Valens' attempt at Gone with the Wind, and the cinematographer ambles along, liberally applying zooms wherever he deems necessary. And that's everywhere. There's plenty of trash panache littered around, like the obligatory roller disco sequence, the wooden dummy that appears in a bungalow during the height of a chase sequence, or the conspicuously foam-textured boulder inexplicably careening from the bluffs toward our heroine.

There's dozens of these moments floating around the film, completely separate from any sense of narrative motivation or realism, buried like chestnuts in the thick bed of indigestible dialogue. I know I mentioned the laughably bizarre dub earlier, but it's time to dive in. Each line is tortuously wrenched from its mother tongue, fastidiously converted word by unrelenting word until it's nothing but an incomprehensible, slavering mash. 

One of my favorite chestnuts takes a place of honor as the title of this review, but other favorites include "Caress me everywhere, melt in my arms," "I could use a drink like beer," and "As a lover, he's fantastic." The entire film is like this. It's like Yoda reading Shakespeare and it is exquisite.

And come to think of it, Miguel kind of looks like the illicit love child of Yoda and Shakespeare.

The only straightforward appeal that Bloody Moon has lies in its gore sequences, which are tremendously fake, but fun and blood-soaked in the best kind of slasher tradition. These sequences were enough to earn the film an honored spot on the UK's Video Nasties list, and they are a veritable Ice Bucket Challenge of grue, splattering its victims every which way with scissors, gardening tools, granite blocks with giant buzz saws, and much much more.

The plot is far too dull and rudimentary to carry the weight of its superior camp sequences, but Bloody Moon is worth checking out for the amateur masochist on the prowl. It's the perfect movie for a low pressure evening hangout if you have friends who aren't too great at paying attention. A less than hearty, but feebly determined thumbs up from me!

Killer: [Alvaro (Christoph Moosbrugger) and Manuela (Nadja Gerganoff)]

Final Girl: Angela (Olivia Pascal)

Best Kill: Inga lets a man with a stocking over his face tie her to a cement slab because she thinks it's kinky, but then he cuts her head off with a circular saw.

Sign of the Times: I don't know whether this is supposed to be a towel or a dress, but it's doing both jobs poorly.

Scariest Moment: The language students are forced to learn the "vosotros" conjugation.

Weirdest Moment: Inga pretends she has a lover in her bungalow by bouncing on her bed and moaning.

Champion Dialogue: "For progress in Spanish, nothing beats lessons in bed."
Body Count: 9; not including a snake that gets decapitated with garden shears.

1. Party Girl is stabbed in the gut with scissors.
2. Aunt Maria is burned to death with a torch.
3. Eva is stabbed through the boob.
4. Inga is decapitated with a circular saw.
5. Souvenir Kid is run over with a car.
6. Laura has her neck crushed with tongs.
7. Miguel is stabbed through the neck with a knitting needle.
8. Alvaro is sliced in the chest with a chainsaw.
9. Manuela is strangled. 

TL;DR: Bloody Moon is a suspenseless giallo riff, but the campiness and gore slightly make up for it.
Rating: 4/10
Word Count: 1295

I Got 99 Problems And They're All Legs

Year: 2010

Director: Tom Six

Cast: Dieter Laser, Ashley C. Williams, Ashlynn Yennie
Run Time: 1 hour 32 minutes
MPAA Rating: R

So, The Human Centipede. Those of you who want to leave now, please do so. Unfortunately, I cannot. Because of my ongoing Saw project, I've felt a need to catch up on other notable horror of the 2000's, which means a long slog through a lot of torture porn knockoffs and remakes. It's tough being me.

But for better or for worse (SPOILER: It's for worse), German director/writer Tom Six's gross-out medical film made it just about as mainstream as any designed-for-cult-status movie can get. The Human Centipede is one of those films that makes you feel like you need a Purell bath afterward, which isn't in and of itself a bad thing. There are great (if haphazard) films that accomplish the same feeling, films like The Last House on the Left and Maniac.

The difference is that those films actively pursued creating unsavory feelings in the audience to make a point about the nature of violence or expose the grubby capabilities of human nature. Yes, The Human Centipede is intended to shock, but for no other purpose than to create a vile sense of "fun," which is patently does not have, mostly for reasons that are unintentional so the filmmakers can not lay claim to them.

I shall attempt to come at this film from a fair and unbiased perspective that delves a little deeper than the knee-jerk reaction to immediately throw the film into the garbage disposal. Because the film doesn't deserve that kind of notoriety. Whatever the mainstream audience might have heard or how the (presumably miniscule) cult audience might feel, The Human Centipede is not an effective gross-out movie. It is much too boring and asinine for that.

There's no way I'm Googling screenshots for this movie. I'm writing this review on my lunch break at work. So here's a kitten. You're welcome.

The plot kicks off with two American tourists named Jenny (Ashlynn Yennie) and Lindsay (Ashley C. Williams) as they get lost on their way to a club in Germany. They end up in the one-story home (how many one-story homes are truly scary? Think about it.) of one mad Dr. Heiter (Dieter Laser), who drugs them and takes them into his secret basement, which is full of medical supplies that will be put to mysterious use.

Maybe not so mysterious. You know what's going to happen. I know what's going to happen. And the characters know what's going to happen, thanks to Dr. Heiter's helpful presentation on an overhead projector (one which rivals Urban Legend's Motive Powerpoint for pushing the envelope on the already ludicrous trope of Villain Explains It All). Presumably this is done so the audience can gasp in shock and awe at the movie's brag that it is "100% medically accurate."

I would assert that it's 100% medically incoherent, but nobody has asked me, have they?

This kitten would have asked me.

The plot is as bare as a girl in a Carl's Jr. commercial, so I won't dive too deep into it. The tourists are caught, sewn butt to mouth with a Japanese man named Katsuro (Akihiro Kitamura) to form a human... sexipede I guess, if you count the legs, and the police investigate their disappearance. After the surgery scene, which is somewhat grotesque, but much more demure than one would assume going in, the victims mostly just moan while Dr. Heiter does strange things and pretends they're a dog.

The biggest issue (among many) with The Human Centipede is the depravity. Specifically, it doesn't really go for it in terms of pushing the envelope of gross-out scares. It's noncommittally depraved, if you will. I'm not saying a full-tilt gorenography film would be better, but it would be much less useless and actually worthy of its reputation.

As it stands, the film is shockingly shy on gore, instead relying on implication and nonexistent atmosphere. Relying on traditional filmmaking techniques to tell its story rather than special effects is a great way to approach a film, but in this case is brutally punishing, considering Tom Six's utter lack of skill for the craft.

He probably doesn't even KNOW any kittens.

The writing is atrocious ("The Japanese possess unbelievable strength when backed into a corner!"), the story is stultifying, and the actors are staggeringly awful. The best comparison I could come up with for the girls' performances was (I'm sorry) that of a helpful mother acting in her child's homemade movie. Not that I welcome the comparison, but after watching Williams and Yennie mug knowingly to the camera time and time again, it's impossible to deny.

And Dieter Laser is just on a different level entirely. While I do appreciate the fervor with which he threw himself into his character - hammy villains are always the best in films of this caliber - he seems to have studied English Dialect at the Tommy Wiseau School of the Arts. His delivery is stilted in English and German, and his face has all the immobile sternness of an ancient oak. But at least he is actively trying and for that he is the most commanding presence in the cast.

There are but a few moments of genuine good in the film, one of them being an effective jump scare, so you can tell the relative caliber of the "good"right away. There is a small amount of visual flair present in a pool scene and there is enough thematic material present in the script to write a mock essay about God complexes and the nature of humanity. It is not effective, but there's definitely enough evidence to back up a parodic approach to the material.

Although I would rather be approaching this marshmallow kitten.

But all in all, The Human Centipede is an especially egregious Idiot Plot married to a genre I have no particular fondness for. Literally every story beat in the film could lead to the end of the conflict if the people populating it weren't such miserable half-wits. There's the ever present failure to double tap the killer when he's cornered, a girl who gulps down an obviously drugged glass of water after deciding to leave the residence of the obviously creepy man who just told her he didn't like human beings, and the fact that apparently the girls thought their nightclub was in the forest.

The film is just such a tremendous waste of time and doesn't even have the dubious thrills of twisted gore to buoy itself as a cult classic of cinematic indecency.

TL;DR: The Human Centipede is a boring waste of everyone's time.

Rating: 2/10

Word Count: 1121