Back when I first started seeking out obscure movies I read a lot of lists by fellow travelers, mostly through Amazon's defunct Listmania tool. I'm not really sure why the site doesn't do that anymore, as it was a really convenient way to see what other people liked and see if it was for sale, and I made a few of them myself. I also started a list of movies to see that would be constantly updated through the years, though when I started it I had a habit of putting tons of movies on the list without really absorbing what they were about and as a result. One of those was Angst, an acutely obscure Austrian horror movie that I was extremely unlikely to see, as it dated from 1983 and had never been released on video in the US, and until very recently has nagged my mind as a missing link in my horror education. This situation was remedied this past Saturday night when the great Grand Illusion Cinema screened the film, and as there's one more screening coming up this coming Saturday (June 20 at 9 pm) I feel the need to tell the world (of Seattle) about this unbelievable film in time for them to decide whether or not to see the film. The screening is most likely in anticipation of the upcoming Blu-Ray and DVD release from Cult Epics, the company that did a great job resurrecting Death Bed: the Bed that Eats (yes, that's a real movie), this coming August 18th. It will be a fully uncut and restored version of the film and the first time the movie will be available in the US in any form, and will most likely be seen as a high point in this year's home video lineup. These options mean that it will be easier than ever before for people like you and me to see Angst, but don't say that I didn't warn you.
A young man (Erwin Leder) walks down a suburban street, comes up to a house, and shoots the old woman who answers the door, running away and into the hands of the authorities. A psychologist narrator informs us of the man's long history of childhood disturbance, sadism and violent crimes, putting the man behind bars so much that nearly half of his life has been spent in jail. Upon his release after the opening murder he goes to a local cafe and leers at two young women, then hails a cab driven by a different young woman. He nearly strangles her with his shoelaces before she scares him out of her car and he runs terrified through the woods, not stopping until he reaches a stately but seemingly empty house. He breaks in and finds that a mentally handicapped man in a wheelchair is in the house, and his sister and mother soon return from shopping. Finally given a chance to act out his sadistic homicidal fantasies, the man throws himself at his new victims with unprecedented and horrifying results, and as he gets closer to realizing his sick dreams we realize he, and us, may never see things the same way again.
There have been many serial killer movies through the years, many of which are docudramas which reconstruct real killings in the hopes of answering some of life's toughest questions. Most films of this type, such as Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer, Monster, Dahmer and Next Time I'll Aim for the Heart, try to put the viewer in to the head of the killers in order so they may get closer to understanding their crimes and inner souls. While Angst isn't set up much differently the effect is so intense and terrifying that it might actually be the scariest serial killer movie I've ever seen. The effect might be difficult to explain without seeing it, so keep in mind that while I'll do my best to describe how the film works to you you'll need to see the movie to get the real experience.
You know how movies have a "default" camera angle? It's usually at eye level, with the camera set up between 5 and 10 feet away from the subject which is put in the middle of the frame. Angst has none of those. From the first shot we know Angst is going to go a singular route in depicting the killings, as its the first shot to use the SnorriCam, a device that attaches the camera to a rig attached to the body of the person it's filming. While the technology dates back to John Frankenheimer's Seconds and earlier, the first movie I saw it used extensively in was Darren Aronofsky's Pi, wherein the camera was fixed as to point directly at actor Sean Guillete in a straight-on angle as he walked down the street, the frame pitching and bowing with every step he took. Angst takes this tech one step further by allowing it to swivel around the actor as if on a 360-degree metal rail and guided by the cameraman. These shots never let actor Erwin Leder escape our gaze, his paranoia made physical as the camera can't help but circle and hound him like a wounded animal. Almost every other shot is some kind of angled tracking shot, either from above, below or jammed into awkward corners, and never in my life have I seen tracking shots so intense, sweeping and frightening. Imagine if you took a security camera and mounted it on a crane that could reach fifty feet in the air, then rolled it around at the speed of a coked-up RC car, and you'l get a feel for how much of this film looks. Every shot is voyeuristic and viscerally unsettling, blowing the interiors and exteriors wide open and creating seemingly impossible shots, such as where the camera swings upside down and across in a trick that would make Amelie jealous. Other shots drag the camera right behind people crawling up staircases, falling over while taped to doors and being thrown out of wheelchairs, each shot tied to the action so well that the audience feels every movement in their bones. This film was made soon after the invention of Steadicam, a piece of technology used extensively by Stanley Kubrick in The Shining to create smooth, versatile tracking movements in extended time spans, but not only did Angst not have access to this tech the lack of those cameras actually makes the action even more unsettling. The mounted tracking shots, such as those above and below people, are seemingly done with the crappiest dollies the filmmakers could find, making sure that the camera picks up every rock, piece of dirt and crack in whatever ground it's traversing, and the shuddering frame perfectly mirrors the killer's unstable perception of the world. It's an astonishing cinematographic achievement that should be studied in film schools the world over, and that's something I don't say lightly.
All of that would have been amazing on its own but what really completes Angst is the central performance by Erwin Leder (his character is never named), an actor I was previously unfamiliar with but now wish he was never in any other films simply so this performance could remain a perfect, isolated artistic statement. This is the most unstable, balls-to-the-wall serial killer performance I've ever seen, topping even Charlize Theron's stunning performance as Aileen Wuorinos in Monster in sheer catastrophic abandon. Leder's gaunt, lanky build and over-large eyes give him the look of a skeleton dipped in latex, and never before have I been so worried someone would simply fly apart from overaction in every scene. Not even Baird Stafford in Nightmares in a Damaged Brain was this out of control of his own actions. The filmmakers don't shy away from the the physical taxation the man puts on himself, not only in his killings but even his attempts to relax, such as eating and stopping for breath, and he is often drenched in sweat and deathly pale. And dear God, does he throw himself around a lot, lunging into people, doors, windows and the air itself as if breaking down the door between himself and a loved one trapped inside a burning building. The other great performance, almost as essential as Leder's, is that of a wiener dog owned by the family he attacks. It follows him around for the whole second half of the movie, its presence a ticking time bomb as we already know his history with animal cruelty, and each second that passes with the dog in his presence is another twist of the thumbscrew. And finally there's the droning, minimalist synthesizer score by German electronica God Klaus Schulze, at times slightly dated but nonetheless engulfing the film in a horripilative gauze that removes any possibility of exit for the viewer, forcing them to run alongside Leder's actions, never stopping but simply observing an awful truth.
I sometimes wonder why I love horror films so much, and specifically why I would want to watch a movie like Angst, one that seems transgressive every time it is described in words. It certainly isn't the most violent, sadistic or disturbing film I've seen, but it is one of the most brutally scary films I've seen from any genre and era. Who was the audience supposed to be for a movie like this, and what would that audience have been expecting? Nobody could have anticipated this, and many viewers might have found themselves running out of the theater in terror or disgust. The answer is that the film is for everyone, because its questions go the heart of how we define ourselves as human beings and members of society. I talked before about how we use movies about the vilest people who ever lived as an extreme comparison to our own actions, and that peering into the darkest abyss of humanity is a necessity if society wants to achieve real results in its desire for self-improvement. We have to know why people like Angst's young man do what they do even if an exact answer is impossible to attain. Nobody is going to try to trick you into thinking a film like Schindler's List is any less disturbing than it actually is, because the act of watching the film is one way to understand one of the most horrifying episodes in human history.
This kind of cinematic experience had one of its most unusual and effective realizations in Alan Clarke's Elephant, one of the most potent calls for peace ever put to film. A short film made for Northern Irish television, the film shows a series of killings committed without explanation or commentary, all done by anonymous gunmen with seemingly no motivation or allegiance. Each murder begins by following the assassin in a long, walking tracking shot, showing the man shoot his victim, let him walk away, and then show the dead body in a static shot that lasts several seconds. This happens 18 times with no music and almost no dialogue. This oppressively repetitive presentation is a brilliant illustration of what the Troubles looked like to the rest of the world - a bunch of people who are totally indistinguishable from one another but murdered each other so regularly and with such poor motivation that any kind of political message was totally squandered in the face of a mounting pile of dead bodies. Some critics felt watching the seemingly endless parade of senseless murders so unbearable that they wanted to yell "Stop!" at their TV screens, and that effect is precisely the point. That kind of conflict simply cannot be allowed to continue, and we feel that need for peace in our gut. We simply can't let serial killers exist, and the fact society keeps producing them and often fails to capture them is a deeply unsettling reality that we have no solution for. Watching Angst I realized that all horror comes from things that are unacceptable to our understanding of reality, that impossibility, or desire for impossibility, exceeding mere fright. In that sense all horror subjects can be put into two categories: things that can't exist (the supernatural) and things that shouldn't exist (human evil). Angst is the most intense and direct attempt to ask the unanswerable questions of serial murder, the one thing that more than any other thing shouldn't exist, throwing the viewer into the unimaginable so forcefully and completely that nothing can let them escape. There's one more chance for my Seattle area readers to see it on the big screen, so if you dare to take this suspense masterpiece head on the door is wide open. I'll never come to regret taking the plunge but I can't guarantee you won't. Watch at your own risk.
~PNK
A young man (Erwin Leder) walks down a suburban street, comes up to a house, and shoots the old woman who answers the door, running away and into the hands of the authorities. A psychologist narrator informs us of the man's long history of childhood disturbance, sadism and violent crimes, putting the man behind bars so much that nearly half of his life has been spent in jail. Upon his release after the opening murder he goes to a local cafe and leers at two young women, then hails a cab driven by a different young woman. He nearly strangles her with his shoelaces before she scares him out of her car and he runs terrified through the woods, not stopping until he reaches a stately but seemingly empty house. He breaks in and finds that a mentally handicapped man in a wheelchair is in the house, and his sister and mother soon return from shopping. Finally given a chance to act out his sadistic homicidal fantasies, the man throws himself at his new victims with unprecedented and horrifying results, and as he gets closer to realizing his sick dreams we realize he, and us, may never see things the same way again.
There have been many serial killer movies through the years, many of which are docudramas which reconstruct real killings in the hopes of answering some of life's toughest questions. Most films of this type, such as Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer, Monster, Dahmer and Next Time I'll Aim for the Heart, try to put the viewer in to the head of the killers in order so they may get closer to understanding their crimes and inner souls. While Angst isn't set up much differently the effect is so intense and terrifying that it might actually be the scariest serial killer movie I've ever seen. The effect might be difficult to explain without seeing it, so keep in mind that while I'll do my best to describe how the film works to you you'll need to see the movie to get the real experience.
You know how movies have a "default" camera angle? It's usually at eye level, with the camera set up between 5 and 10 feet away from the subject which is put in the middle of the frame. Angst has none of those. From the first shot we know Angst is going to go a singular route in depicting the killings, as its the first shot to use the SnorriCam, a device that attaches the camera to a rig attached to the body of the person it's filming. While the technology dates back to John Frankenheimer's Seconds and earlier, the first movie I saw it used extensively in was Darren Aronofsky's Pi, wherein the camera was fixed as to point directly at actor Sean Guillete in a straight-on angle as he walked down the street, the frame pitching and bowing with every step he took. Angst takes this tech one step further by allowing it to swivel around the actor as if on a 360-degree metal rail and guided by the cameraman. These shots never let actor Erwin Leder escape our gaze, his paranoia made physical as the camera can't help but circle and hound him like a wounded animal. Almost every other shot is some kind of angled tracking shot, either from above, below or jammed into awkward corners, and never in my life have I seen tracking shots so intense, sweeping and frightening. Imagine if you took a security camera and mounted it on a crane that could reach fifty feet in the air, then rolled it around at the speed of a coked-up RC car, and you'l get a feel for how much of this film looks. Every shot is voyeuristic and viscerally unsettling, blowing the interiors and exteriors wide open and creating seemingly impossible shots, such as where the camera swings upside down and across in a trick that would make Amelie jealous. Other shots drag the camera right behind people crawling up staircases, falling over while taped to doors and being thrown out of wheelchairs, each shot tied to the action so well that the audience feels every movement in their bones. This film was made soon after the invention of Steadicam, a piece of technology used extensively by Stanley Kubrick in The Shining to create smooth, versatile tracking movements in extended time spans, but not only did Angst not have access to this tech the lack of those cameras actually makes the action even more unsettling. The mounted tracking shots, such as those above and below people, are seemingly done with the crappiest dollies the filmmakers could find, making sure that the camera picks up every rock, piece of dirt and crack in whatever ground it's traversing, and the shuddering frame perfectly mirrors the killer's unstable perception of the world. It's an astonishing cinematographic achievement that should be studied in film schools the world over, and that's something I don't say lightly.
Angst's unique SnorriCam sequences
All of that would have been amazing on its own but what really completes Angst is the central performance by Erwin Leder (his character is never named), an actor I was previously unfamiliar with but now wish he was never in any other films simply so this performance could remain a perfect, isolated artistic statement. This is the most unstable, balls-to-the-wall serial killer performance I've ever seen, topping even Charlize Theron's stunning performance as Aileen Wuorinos in Monster in sheer catastrophic abandon. Leder's gaunt, lanky build and over-large eyes give him the look of a skeleton dipped in latex, and never before have I been so worried someone would simply fly apart from overaction in every scene. Not even Baird Stafford in Nightmares in a Damaged Brain was this out of control of his own actions. The filmmakers don't shy away from the the physical taxation the man puts on himself, not only in his killings but even his attempts to relax, such as eating and stopping for breath, and he is often drenched in sweat and deathly pale. And dear God, does he throw himself around a lot, lunging into people, doors, windows and the air itself as if breaking down the door between himself and a loved one trapped inside a burning building. The other great performance, almost as essential as Leder's, is that of a wiener dog owned by the family he attacks. It follows him around for the whole second half of the movie, its presence a ticking time bomb as we already know his history with animal cruelty, and each second that passes with the dog in his presence is another twist of the thumbscrew. And finally there's the droning, minimalist synthesizer score by German electronica God Klaus Schulze, at times slightly dated but nonetheless engulfing the film in a horripilative gauze that removes any possibility of exit for the viewer, forcing them to run alongside Leder's actions, never stopping but simply observing an awful truth.
I sometimes wonder why I love horror films so much, and specifically why I would want to watch a movie like Angst, one that seems transgressive every time it is described in words. It certainly isn't the most violent, sadistic or disturbing film I've seen, but it is one of the most brutally scary films I've seen from any genre and era. Who was the audience supposed to be for a movie like this, and what would that audience have been expecting? Nobody could have anticipated this, and many viewers might have found themselves running out of the theater in terror or disgust. The answer is that the film is for everyone, because its questions go the heart of how we define ourselves as human beings and members of society. I talked before about how we use movies about the vilest people who ever lived as an extreme comparison to our own actions, and that peering into the darkest abyss of humanity is a necessity if society wants to achieve real results in its desire for self-improvement. We have to know why people like Angst's young man do what they do even if an exact answer is impossible to attain. Nobody is going to try to trick you into thinking a film like Schindler's List is any less disturbing than it actually is, because the act of watching the film is one way to understand one of the most horrifying episodes in human history.
This kind of cinematic experience had one of its most unusual and effective realizations in Alan Clarke's Elephant, one of the most potent calls for peace ever put to film. A short film made for Northern Irish television, the film shows a series of killings committed without explanation or commentary, all done by anonymous gunmen with seemingly no motivation or allegiance. Each murder begins by following the assassin in a long, walking tracking shot, showing the man shoot his victim, let him walk away, and then show the dead body in a static shot that lasts several seconds. This happens 18 times with no music and almost no dialogue. This oppressively repetitive presentation is a brilliant illustration of what the Troubles looked like to the rest of the world - a bunch of people who are totally indistinguishable from one another but murdered each other so regularly and with such poor motivation that any kind of political message was totally squandered in the face of a mounting pile of dead bodies. Some critics felt watching the seemingly endless parade of senseless murders so unbearable that they wanted to yell "Stop!" at their TV screens, and that effect is precisely the point. That kind of conflict simply cannot be allowed to continue, and we feel that need for peace in our gut. We simply can't let serial killers exist, and the fact society keeps producing them and often fails to capture them is a deeply unsettling reality that we have no solution for. Watching Angst I realized that all horror comes from things that are unacceptable to our understanding of reality, that impossibility, or desire for impossibility, exceeding mere fright. In that sense all horror subjects can be put into two categories: things that can't exist (the supernatural) and things that shouldn't exist (human evil). Angst is the most intense and direct attempt to ask the unanswerable questions of serial murder, the one thing that more than any other thing shouldn't exist, throwing the viewer into the unimaginable so forcefully and completely that nothing can let them escape. There's one more chance for my Seattle area readers to see it on the big screen, so if you dare to take this suspense masterpiece head on the door is wide open. I'll never come to regret taking the plunge but I can't guarantee you won't. Watch at your own risk.
~PNK
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