Review of Angst (1983) by William B — 29 Sep 2009
The film Angst by Director Gerald Kargl is a beautifully shot film and rightfully so. The camera work is flawless although somewhat unsettling. The cinematographer behind the camera was none other than Zbigniew Rybczynski a filmmaker who had won an Oscar two years prior for his short film, Tango. The beauty of the film aside, this is one of the most disturbing films ever put to celluloid.
The film starts with sweeping shots of a prison and then centers on the central character. As he is shaving he explains that he stabbed his own mother and killed a 70-year-old woman, which are the reasons he is in prison. Then the guards come to his door because he is being let out after 14 years.
The movie then follows ?the killer? as the character is called as he tries to live the life of a free man. It is something that he utterly fails at, because he is always analyzing who his next victim should be. The film reaches the breaking point when he forcibly enters a suburban home and waits for the family that lives there. When the family of 3 arrives at home he incapacitates the daughter who is the strongest family member and then the movie revolves around how he kills each family member in graphic detail. First he kills the mother by suffocating her, then he drowns the paraplegic son in a tub full of water, and finally he chases after the daughter stabs her with a knife multiple times and then ?has his way? with her still warm corpse. He then drives to town with the dead family in the trunk of his car and gets into an accident. The film ends with him showing the police what he has in his trunk. In 1983 the year that this film came out it received an X rating for violence even with film standards becoming more lax than they had been in previous years. After its initial showing in the theaters the film drifted into obscurity and disappeared. Then years later came the advent of the Internet and recently this masterpiece of shock cinema has finally become available again if only online for the time being.
This review of Angst (1983) was written by William B on 29 Sep 2009.
Angst has generally received positive reviews.
Was this review helpful?
