Necrophile Passion on DVD from Blacklava Entertainment!
Not long ago, me and my Partner in Gore, Willow Brian, were chilling watching the extras on a DVD when we chanced upon a trailer for Necrophile Passion, the infamous underground Austrian/German flick which pops up now and then on various sites. Willow has a deep fascination with the dead, and necrophilia movies kind of fit into her interest. Me? I like well pieced together flicks on the subject because, way back in 1991, it was Jorg Buttgereit’s late ‘80s gem, Nekromantik, which turned me onto the more extreme places in the realms of horror.
I hadn’t seen Necrophile Passion so I was quite excited when finally buying a limited edition from Blacklava Entertainment, daubed in an autograph, having not covered it in my previous article on necrophilia films (see article here) so we sat down with popcorn ready (as seen on my Instagram account ). We begin with our central un-named protagonist out for a stroll in the woods (the music by the way is suitably eerie, nice that this release has a soundtrack CD in the shell box to) when he spots something nearby – it’s a starfish shaped nude corpse of a woman, fresh, covered in crimson. He stares at it a few moments before touching the flesh checking that she is indeed dead.
First reaction is of course type emergency services into his mobile, but then he pauses because another thought is in his mind. He delays for an eternity, then abandons the call and crouches, looking at the cadaver. Hurriedly he packs her into his car and drives home.
The timing is great here, small details, the blood has dried by now. He feels and kisses the cold skin. It was obvious to us that he’s had these urges a long time, just not had the key to release such emotions and lusting. He then roughly fucks the corpse – she is a great actress, by the way, no flicker of movements nor hint of life. Absolutely brilliant. He sweats and pants his way through. So far, this first ten minutes has delivered spoonful’s of awesomeness.
He sits and in flashbacks we see parts of his abusive childhood. His emotions are welling up. Damn, he can certainly act as well. His features and looks say so much without words or sounds. We then glimpse a relationship which fell apart. “The only thing that binds us together is pain.” his partner is heard saying.
The theme is pain and humiliation. He hates it all, yet he cannot live without it, and, as Willow said, he passes it all to the corpse. Narrating his thoughts, he self-harms, describing why and how it feels to him, then he collapses into a vacant expression, blood oozing. He questions himself as two personalities a lot. The building dramatic music is still perfection.
In his dreams, he sees a woman (who turns out to be his ex) riding a putrid decomposed cadaver accompanied by dark industrial techno sort of tunes and merging camera angles. She’s covered in glistening corpse juices. The music is really an Alec Empire kind of thing and that’s a compliment. Willow randomly had a thought, “It would be interesting to know if the corpse is a man or a woman,” she mused to me.
“A naked body. Dead flesh. Like bloodthirsty beats among sheep. Welcome to the rise of the heartless.” I love the script, throughout this mini monster, so much goes on within the words. Getting out of bed, sinister Chelsea Wolfe kind of music abound, he takes a knife, fantasising a nude bloody woman tied and writhing helplessly as he cuts ravines into her skin. Switching on the TV, our nude corpse rider is back, showing us what is predominantly seen in the trailer. She brought us forth into this dark moist place and we are thankful.
Afterwards he sits all tense, paranoid, eyes darting around the room. His mind is conversing with him again. There’s a brief anti- humanity interlude before the next chapter (I forgot to say, yeah, the film is divided into chunks). It’s more flashbacks to the doomed relationship, the reveal of her fetishes and she waxes lyrical about love sounding like an irritating over dramatic art or drama student. It all takes us nicely to the present and his splintered mind. As a final act of anger and lust, he calls her, asking her to come around…
In a nutshell, the acting, the music, the erotic activity, makes Necrophile Passion a classic in this genre. There’s obvious nods to both Nekromantik films but that’s to be expected. It’s a rough made but imaginative film. Not perfect by any means, but certainly doesn’t disappoint if you come in looking for beauty, horror, repulsion, and erotica. I won’t mention the camera man reflected in a tap, that’s cool.
This Blacklava edition is one of 100. The soundtrack comes with it, as does a load of advertising cards, plus extras. There’s an interview with actor Gunther Brandl, in his native tongue so we had no idea what he was saying but he has a great American Werewolf in London t-shirt. Also, there’s lots of trailers with many of the cast members. Loads goes on, one’s surreal, one is a sex comedy, another is quite gothic, the best of the bunch is Castle of Horror directed by Gunther and his family.
Windmill Entertainment have only just put out a brand new version of this flick, through BlackLava (see here) so it’s worth grabbing if you cannot bag this one because in any version this is worth sitting on a shelf in any self-respecting extreme horror droolers collection.
Directed by: Tom Heidenberg
Written by: Tom Heidenberg
Produced by: Thomas Binder
Cinematography by: Thomas Binder
Editing by: Thomas Binder
Music by: Rene Bidmon
Cast: Gunther Brandl, Eldrid Remy, Sandra Pucher, Katharina Buchberger, Simone R.
Year: 2013
Country: Germany
Language: Austrian (English Substitles)
Colour: Colour
Runtime: 52min
Distribution: BlackLava Entertainment
DVD SPECS:
Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1
Region: PAL R0/ALL
Audio: Dolby Digital 2.0
SUPPLEMENTAL MATERIAL:
– Music Video
– Trailershow
– Interview with Gunther Brandl