Website design By BotEap.comAs a nation, Germany has been through many difficult times and survived two of the biggest wars that have ever taken place on our planet. Understandably, having endured so many real-life terrors, the horror movie genre didn’t exactly flourish there after World War II. In fact, it wouldn’t be until the 1980s that filmmakers would begin to emerge from the German underground film scene and begin to make their mark on our favorite genre.

Website design By BotEap.comToday I would like to introduce you to five influential German directors who have made the German horror genre what it is today. While you may not recognize all of them, I bet you will know at least one name from this list.

Website design By BotEap.comWe begin our journey with a man named Andreas Schnaas, said to be the pioneer of Germany’s ultraviolent underground film scene. Herr Schnaas was born in Hamburg, Germany in 1968 and fell in love with cinema from a very young age. Since his local theaters were lax in excluding young people from the scarier films, Schaas grew up on a steady diet of high-caliber martial arts movies and zombie movies. While his parents didn’t necessarily approve of his film tastes, they did recognize his artistic inclinations, and at the age of twelve

Website design By BotEap.comhe had filmed his first amateur horror film in which he and a friend starred.

Website design By BotEap.comIt would not be until 1989 that Herr Schnaas would raise the necessary funds to shoot his own film (5,000 German Marks, approximately $2,000 USD), but when he made his first film, it caused quite a stir. violent shit, his first feature film was so named because it is precisely what Schnaas’s friend accused him of doing. The story involved Karl the Butcher and obviously the movie itself was heavily gore oriented. The fans loved it and it instantly became a cult hit inspiring many at midnight. The German government, on the other hand, banned it once it hit video as the country’s first direct-to-video release. It went on to spawn three sequels: mother take my hand, doom infantry (known as zombie death in the United States) and nikos. Even

Website design By BotEap.comalthough the band never sued for copyright infringement, the first film included an unauthorized use of the song WASP.The torture never stops‘.

Website design By BotEap.comThat same year, Berlin writer-director Jörg Buttgereit would bring another controversial film to the world. Necromantic it was described by famed filmmaker John Waters as the world’s “first necrophiliac erotica.” Nekromantik’s story involves a sort of tragic “hero” whose job it is to remove bodies from public places. This gives him the perfect opportunity to pursue his favorite fetish: falling in love with the dead. As you can imagine, due to its

Website design By BotEap.comissue, the film was banned in several countries. Unlike Schnaas’s films, however, Nekromantik is intended as social commentary. The basic gist of the story shows the main character being abused and tormented by society at large, which triggers his withdrawal into the sick fantasy world in which he was built to hide. In his fantasies, he can exert ultimate control over the world and essentially turn the dead into “puppets” in the same way that he perceives society as the all-controlling master of his existence. .

Website design By BotEap.comWhile Herr Buttgereit’s film can be defined as horror as it is clearly a strong element in the film, many viewers find it to be more clearly classified as a transgressive film that is itself an avant-garde genre of cinema. The movie itself contains many scenes that will be hard for any audience to swallow, but the hard truths about life often are. For its stark symbolism, Buttgereit’s feature film debut certainly pushes all boundaries.

Website design By BotEap.comShortly before the 1990s, one more force emerged on the German film scene: Olaf Ittenbach. black past, Herr Ittenbach’s debut feature, proves to be not only his directorial debut, but his acting breakthrough as well. He plays a teenage metalhead who is a heavy drinker and obsessed with death, tortured by nightmarish visions. Of course, from there he is a total spiral into madness. Many consider Ittenbach the first German ‘splatterpunk’ filmmaker and have compared his work to resident Evil, toxic avengers and other more recognized films. He certainly made German horror more widely known to the public, but not as much as our last director featured in this article.

Website design By BotEap.comYou may have guessed what’s coming: Uwe Boll. Herr Boll is a filmmaker whom criticism love hate. He is a man who seemingly single-handedly brought dark German films to a truly international level. He is not only a director, but also a screenwriter and, above all, a producer of his own work. Unlike many Hollywood directors who receive external funding, Herr Boll tends to finance his own work. He studied at both the University of Siegen and the

Website design By BotEap.comUniversity of Cologne and has a doctorate in literature.

Website design By BotEap.comSo it may surprise many that he is so despised in the world of cinema. While there are as many potential reasons as there are minds to think of them, critics often take aim at what they see as their emphasis on style over substance. Uwe Boll’s films are often directly inspired by video games such as Alone in the dark, Postcard, bloodrayne and House of the Dead. While they may not have the best acting or most realistic effects in today’s movies, Herr Boll’s movies certainly pack a solid fun factor and that made him a cult hero among movie fans. horror and video games in general.

Website design By BotEap.comIn true maverick fashion, Uwe Boll rarely backs down when criticized. He is known for publicly insulting critics of him and even challenging them to get in the ring and box him! This complements his legendary ability to raise funds for his films instead of seeking funding from established studios. Most of his investors are German because in his native country he enjoys a tax haven that helps him finance films more easily. despite all the

Website design By BotEap.comharsh reviews and downright bad things being said about his films, he continues to produce them and arguably gets better. While he may still be a magnet for media spite, Uwe Boll is proud of his fan base and refuses to give up his passion.

Website design By BotEap.comThat’s a summary of this look at four influential directors on the German horror scene. I hope I have opened your eyes to what the land that brought us Volkswagens and Dachshunds has to offer when it comes to dark cinema. It might take some work to find the titles shown here, but you certainly won’t fail to be surprised if you choose to pick a few for your own pleasure to see!