Review of Olaf Ittenbach’s Dard Divorce!

The German godfather of all things gory, Olaf Ittenbach, has put another notch in his belt with Dard Divorce. The film is a very brutal and unrelenting trip down a road paved with beatings, torture, and bodily mutilation.

The story is disjointed and awkwardly delivered. The acting is cardboard and lost in the German to English translation, but man is it ever a meanspirited romp, filled with brutal constant beatings and merciless over-the-top violence. The practical effects are nasty and most of the violence is done in torture porn style scenarios.

Ittenbach’s now ex-wife Martina gets put through the ringer in this one. She gets a good going over but at the same time is quite resilient. I enjoyed the story in Dard Divorce. It was different with the husband and wife going through a nasty separation. We get the kids involved (who are obviously not actors at all) and the wraith of the drug dealers involved. It managed to tell a story even if it couldn’t carry it through fluently.

The plot has lawyer and alcoholic mother Nathalie Stein played by Martina Ittenbach (Legend of Hell) going through a divorce with her less than desirable husband, Tim, played by Barrett Jones (Gardenof Love). Nathalie let’s Tim take the kids one last time before she leaves him for good. She soon regrets it when they disappear, and Tim shows up at the house that night mortally wounded. 

After Tim disappears Nathalie then encounters several unsavoury drug dealers. They torture her trying to get information on the whereabouts of their money and drugs they say Tim stole from them. First, we get Detective Phil Warren, played by Jaymes Butler (Barbarian), who is a gang enforcer. He brutalizes Nathalie to no end and even supposedly killed her kids without remorse.

Then we get cross dresser Jeremy, played by Gideon Jackson, who seems to use a more subtle approach with getting information from Nathalie. Until, that is, we learn how he executed Nathalie’s lover in a gruesome flashback. These are some harrowing scenes of relentless bodily destruction. Olaf Ittenbach was definitely in his torture phase with Dard Divorce because it leaks a Saw/Hostel vibe in many scenes. The gore is on point and fans will no doubt be disappointed in that realm.

However, the sound editing is very off towards the end of the film as the audio is so low it’s hard to decipher. The plot takes a bunch of twists and turns pumping out different scenarios with Nathalie’s husband Tim as a bumbling loser in one backstory. In another he was the perpetrator of an ambush on a bunch of criminals, which is a bit of a mess and all over the place. The dialogue is delivered robotically by Martina, but she is quite the dish. It’s great seeing her arise determined to fuck shit up after practically getting her face beat off and body tortured. 

Olaf Ittenbach has come a long way and his productions have become more elaborate since the days of Burning Moon, Black Past, and even Premutos. They still definitely need work but if the sole purpose of Dard Divorce was to simply display his incredible effects work then mission accomplished. For that purpose, gore fans will undoubtedly be satisfied with Dard Divorce.

AKA: Развод, ダード・ディボース

Directed by: Olaf Ittenbach
Written by: Olaf Ittenbach
Produced by: Olaf Ittenbach, Mike Neun
Cinematography by: Burhan Özdal
Editing by: Eckart Zerzawy
Music by: Konstantinos Kalogeropoulos
Special Effects by: Olaf Ittenbach, Frank Schröter, Claudia Schwind
Cast: Martina Ittenbach, Daryl Jackson, Jaymes Butler, Barrett Jones, Christopher Kriesa, Gideon Jackson
Year: 2007
Country: Germany
Language: German (English Subtitles)
Colour: Colour
Runtime: 1h 17min

Studio: IMAS Filmproduktion