24 of 31 Horror Films I've Never Seen 2016: German Angst (2015)

It’s not very often that I watch anthology/omnibus films.  For the most part, I prefer to watch feature length films over shorts, but over time I’ve been coming around to format.  To preface, an anthology film is a feature length film comprised of multiple short films by different directors following a common theme.  Horror happens to yield quite well to the result and there have been a number of anthology films released in the last few years.  V/H/S and ABC’s of Death both have taken the format to franchise territory and when Asian Horror was booming during the mid-2000s we had gems like The Three Extremes 1 & 2.  Released last year, however, the triplet of stories that make up German Angst are in a class of their own.

From Director’s Jörg Buttgereit (NEKRomantik, Der Todesking, Schramm), Michal Kosakowski (Zero Killed), and Andreas Marschall (Tears of Kali, Masks) join forces to bring three films about love, sex, and death in Berlin.  To give away much more than that would honestly ruin the experience.

First of all, these films fall into the category of extreme horror.  Shock value is high and taboos don’t really exist.  Buttgereit is the more well-known of the three due to his incredibly grotesque shock films from the late 80s and into the 90s, but Kosakowski and Marschall are unafraid to show just how far they push the limits with their segments.  There is a lot of bloodshed in this anthology and it is almost always squirm inducing.  However, the mood and thematic tone of the films are incredibly poetic, recalling the romantic lyricism of the Silent Expressionist films in the 20s.  Updated for the modern age of course, but anyone with an interest in silent film history will be able to feel it when watching German Angst.

Of the three segments I’m honestly torn.  They’re all so unique and yet they meld so well together.  I think perhaps I found myself squirming more during the animal brutality in Kosakowski’s Make A Wish segment which has a lot of references to Nazi atrocities past and present.  Buttgereit’s Final Girl at first makes one think that he’s toning himself down from his past, but believe me he still manages to push a few nausea buttons.  Marschall’s Alraune is probably the most tension inducing and supernatural of the three and boasts some incredible creature effects.  Each film leads into the next perfectly giving the feeling of the beginning of a day and ending in the dead of night.  There really is something for every type of horror fan in this film, but it is not for the faint of heart or the easily nauseated.