Angst (1983)

(In French, On Cable TV, October 2020) If someone decided to make the film I would be most guaranteed to dislike, it would look a lot like Angst. It’s not just a non-supernatural horror movie with plenty of gore: it’s one that uses a naturalistic, borderline cinema-vérité style to follow a serial killing psychopath as he goes around his deadly business. The camera seldom flinches even as he kills and kills again, the narration (from the killer’s viewpoint) is grating and the effect is like being dragged in mud whether you like it or not. The only thing that saves the film (and I use the term loosely) is an undeniable filmmaking competency from writer-director-producer Gerald Kargl: he knows that he’s going for revulsion, and he won’t stop at anything to get it. In other words, this may be a gruesome, obnoxious, morally repulsive film, but it’s one that consciously set out to be, rather than struggling with even the basic elements of how to put a movie together. Angst is still not something to recommend: This is ugly cinema at its worst, and it’s the opposite of anything I want from a movie. Bring up a fluffy romantic comedy next, because I need to find some joy in life again.