NEKROMANTIK (1987)

Directed by Jorg Buttgereit
Written by Jorg Buttgereit & Franz Rodenkirchen
Starring Bernd Daktari Lorenz, Beatrice Manowski, & Harald Lundt

When I was in college in the late nineties, we had a night where my roommates and I would try to get the most fucked up films possible. When NEKROMANTIK came up on the cue, we realized we had reached the pinnacle of perversion. This is one of those films that is not for everyone. It could be seen as art. Then again, it could be seen as shit. Much like the way THE HUMAN CENTIPEDE is received today, I’d be interested to see what would have happened had Jorg Buttergereit released this film today. The fervor would have probably been comparable.

Rob and Betty have a pretty gross hobby. Rob (played by Bernd Daktari) is on a street cleaning crew which disposes of dead bodies. Upon returning to his home, we find that Rob has been bringing his work home with him, much to his girlfriend Betty’s glee. Both fantasize about the parts Rob ferrets away into his uniform at work and brings home. One day, the opportunity arises for Rob to get his hands on a dead body. Upon bringing it home, his girlfriend and he make love with the corpse. Soon, Rob realizes his girlfriend prefers the corpse over him and his life begins to fall apart.

Thematically, this film could be seen as a realization of the inadequacies of a male in a relationship, fearing that the woman can get along without him. A more nihilist approach could be read into the themes of necrophilia throughout the film as well. Though stomach-churning, the film is not guilty of being one-dimensional. That said, NEKROMANTIK does ring as pretty pretentious, as a gratuitous amount of time is spent on trying to gross out the viewer with slo mo lovemaking scenes as the couple play with the decomposed body parts and the real life killing of a rabbit on film. Though I’m sure Buttergereit wanted to drive the point home that he is being artsy-fartsy by juxtaposing a classical piano score alongside these acts of depravity, the sheer fascination the director seems to have with his cast rolling around in the slime defeats the purpose.

All in all, NEKROMANTIK is only for the most hardcore of horrorphiles. It is bound to incite a night sleeping on the couch if you bring this one home to watch with your sweetie. That said, for such a limited budget, the effects are surprisingly effective. For the longest time, my roommate tried to convince me that he read somewhere that real body parts were used in this film. A little internet research disproves that theory, but most of the effects (especially the lucky corpse) are very realistic. The “climax” of the film embodies every sense of the word and I’ll leave the brave souls still reading left to check that out. It’s a memorable image, though tasteless to say the least. A sequel to NEKROMANTIK was directed, again by Buttergereit, coincidentally called NEKROMANTIK 2: RETURN OF THE LOVING DEAD. One of these days, I’ll steel my stomach to review that one too.

Check out the trailer here!!