No Reason Movie Review from Unearthed Films!
Olaf Ittenbach, German director and extreme splatter effects guru extraordinaire, is best known for his early ‘90s trio of extreme gore classicks, Black Past, The Burning Moon, and Premutos – Der gefallene Engel. This feature flick, No Reason, from 2010, released by our friends at Unearthed Films showcases Ittenbach at a more matured storyteller level, but with the same proclivity for vicious gore.
After a montage of wholesome footage of a family playing in the snow showcased via 8mm home movie footage, our story begins with a car pulling up to a warehouse. A person can be seen from the back seat, holding a gun to the driver. Cut to the next scene, entering the warehouse, a now fully nude woman holds a gun to a man. Lucky she was too warm for the robe. The man pleads for his life, mentioning he has a wife and two kids. Our naked lady is unfazed. “Stop this psychological shit. I don’t give a damn. Even if you have twenty kids.” she spurts. She becomes taken aback for a moment stating she once had a kid and drops to the ground enabling our guy to (attempt to) commandeer the situation with a piece of wood, beating the woman. She regains control, shoots our captive man, and blows her own brains out. Paramedics arrive and try to resuscitate her.
Cut to another point in time. We are introduced to Jennifer (Irene Holzfurtner), our main character from the previous situation, her husband Sebastian (Mathias Engel), and her son Nico. We are also introduced to the postman (Ralph Willmann), who delivers a package but is busting to take a dump. She allows him inside, to vacate his bowels (which he does all over the toilet seat), in a bizarre and meaningless scene, providing nothing to the storyline. Then neighbour Irina (Annika Strauss) knocks on her door with a backhanded farewell, stating she will slide a goodbye poem under her door later. Afterwards, Jennifer decides to go out and run some errands. She leaves young Nico with the old lady neighbour across the hall.
Returning later with a Dr. Oetker frozen pizza and a six-pack of Becks she is greeted at the door by a weird guy called Willy (Andreas Pape), talking in cryptic messages “I’ll see you in the bright light. Someday” he states before leaving. The visitation does not stop there. Jennifer’s friend Joe calls, asking to come over in another futile scene. He does so and talks of his dead daughter. Joe leaves and Jennifer notices the poem slid under the door from Irina which reads: “Today in his arms she lies and the faded river of love she denies. His mind is driven full with delight, to hold my body so tight. He got overwhelmed by greed and made love to me between the sheets.” Accompanying the letter are intimate black and white printouts of Sebastian and Irina. Jennifer attempts to compose herself, after the news hits hard, deciding what her next plan is. She decides to take a bath. She falls asleep.
The next sequence begins with the titles “Layer 1: Level Red.” Our protagonist awakens on a floor, startled, naked and bloodied, surrounded by tons of body parts. The room is illuminated by red. A voice starts calling her “Jennifer, can you hear me?” the voice continues, “I’m here to show you the way into the light.” She pleads asking where her son is. “The child is already enlightened. He waits for you in the light. He already forgave you.” asserts the voice. He then proposes with the question “Who could be interested to do you harm?” “Irina. That bitch from upstairs! She’s having an affair with my man!” she confides. Jennifer is then told to play on video on her “media player” which depicts a video of a Cthulhu-masked man in S&M type gear standing behind a woman duct taped to a chair. The woman, Irina, pleads for her life stating the poem had been given to Jennifer. The masked man proceeds to slash her eyeball with a scalpel, sealing the deal by literally whipping her face off with a cat o’ nine tails.
The voice then gets her to watch more videos of everyone she knows (that us viewers have seen up until now) getting murdered in various ways. He’s states that all of this is her fault and to read the book he has sent her. All the characters up until now that we have been rather pointlessly introduced to seem to merely enter the plot so that there may be a plethora of body parts surrounding Jennifer now.
The book the postman with the explosive diarrhoea delivered is titled ‘Color-Allegorics: the interpretation of colours by values of symbols.’ The book explains back in the antiquity (a period before the middle ages), four temperaments got assigned with colours. White means absolute purity. Blue means sky, loyalty, pureness, Maria (whatever Maria means). Yellow is sun, eternity, and envy. Green is hope and immortality. Red is love, blood, and blood of Christ. Lastly, black is sorrow. What follows is Jennifer’s journey into various levels of hell, thematically illuminated by the colours listed in the book.
No Reason is an appropriate title for this film, particularly due to the viewer being introduced to our protagonist Jennifer being thrown into a descension into hell, seemingly for no reason. Here, Ittenbach seems to explore the levels of hell almost as a more articulate homage to his sophomore debut The Burning Moon. With this storyline Ittenbach attempts to deliver a thought provoking, provocative narrative, which works on some levels. The main narrative of a mother/wife being forced through colour coded levels of hell, in a last-ditch effort to find her son, is a unique one. However, some viewers will find the introduction of characters for the mere purpose of making them gruesome casualties pointless. Alternatively, one might look at the introduction of the character as having a point due to them having a relationship with Jennifer. I’m leaning somewhat to the latter. While their introduction was a gimmick to murder them, I understand the purpose of doing so.
No Reason is gory. Boy is it gory. The gore is also first-rate. The film is also shot well, with nice looking cinematography from director of photography, Axel Rubbel, shot in 4K on a Red One Camera. Speaking of gore, there are body parts everywhere, cocks are sliced in half with scissors, folks are eviscerated, faces are ripped apart, eyeballs are scooped out, and there is an extremely graphic autopsy to name a few. Not to mention some S&M scenes complete with leather clad females urinating on one another which will give you a little flashback to Deep Web XXX, or 29 Needles for that matter.
Gigantic accolades need to go to Irene Holzfurtner, who played Jennifer, basically completely naked, covered in sticky corn syrup, pleading manically the whole film! It’s a shame she hasn’t starred in a film since Olaf Ittenbach’s Savage Love in 2012. Shooting No Reason must have been a test of perseverance for her indeed.
Overall, No Reason is a little rough around the edges, narrative-wise, but what do you expect from such a film? You expect killer German splatter, blended with a decent storyline. No Reason does just that and is a welcomed addition to the Unearthed Films library.
No Reason drops on blu-ray and DVD uncut May 11, 2021 from Unearthed Films. This release will include a Making of, Interview with Timothy Balme (Dead Alive), a photo gallery, and trailers. Check out that killer artwork!
AKA: Без причина, Χωρίς Λόγο, Choris Logo, Без причин
Directed by: Olaf Ittenbach | Written by: Olaf Ittenbach | Produced by: Olaf Ittenbach, Ingo Trendelbernd, Michael Nezik | Cinematography by: Axel Rubbel | Music by: Michael Donner | Special Effects by: Olaf Ittenbach, Philipp Rathgeber, Daniela Tokarski | Cast: Irene Holzfurtner, Mathias Engel, Alexander Gamnitzer, Andreas Pape, Annika Strauss, Ralph Willmann, Markus Hettich, Timothy Balme | Year: 2010 | Country: Germany | Language: German (English subtitles) | Colour: Colour | Runtime: 1h 16min | Studio: IMAS Film Entertainment
Distributor: Unearthed Films
