Most of the movies I talk about in my Underrated Horror Movie Gems feature are at least somewhat obscure, but I think this one takes the cake. Move over "Scarecrows"! (See May 19, 2013 post for info about that film.) "Nekromantik 2" (I'm not going to type its full title out every time) is a 1990/1991 German film which is, clearly, a sequel, to 1987's "Nekromantik." Both films concern a very controversial and taboo subject--necrophilia, or people who are attracted to, and have sex with corpses. Normally, I think sequels are subpar to the originals, but this is a rare exception. Anyway, I'll follow my usual format: short, spoiler-free synopsis, followed by a longer, spoiler-rich recap, then a discussion of the movie's themes and strong points, and ending with some cast and crew information. Also, the recap has some spoilers for "Nekromantik," if anyone cares.
Monika is a nurse with an odd sexual fixation--she's attracted to the dead. She decides to explore this more fully by actually stealing a human corpse. However, after she takes it home and experiences it, she has second thoughts. And at about the same time, she meets a man named Mark, and the two start dating. Things seem to be going well, but there are possible troubles ahead. Will Mark and Monika's relationship work out? Or will her forbidden desires once more return to the surface?
(SPOILERS AHEAD UNTIL MARKED) "Nekromantik 2" opens with a brief flashback to the end of the previous movie, "Nekromantik." It shows necrophiliac Robert Schmadtke, despondent over his girlfriend leaving him, and taking the corpse they both had sex with, committing suicide by stabbing himself in the abdomen with a knife. As he dies, Robert also achieves a bizarre, later bloody orgasm. The scene then shifts to an ill-tended cemetery. A young woman, Monika, successfully avoids a groundskeeper and makes her way to a grave, which turns out to be Robert's. She digs up his decaying body, and manages to get it back to her apartment without being seen. She wastes little time in stripping off Rob's burial clothes, and then her own. We then meet Mark, a young man who has a weird job--he dubs fake moans and dialogue for porn movies. Cutting back to Monika, the audience now sees her naked and riding the corpse. However, her sexual escapade ends prematurely, as she has to stop and vomit in her toilet. Next Rob's girlfriend from the first movie is seen again, as she also visits the cemetery and is quite upset when she sees that Rob's body is missing.
Monika continues her relationship with the corpse, dressing it up, cuddling with it, and taking Polaroid photographs of it. At the same time Mark is planning a movie date with a female friend of his. However, his date is late, so Mark gives the extra ticket to Monika instead. They enjoy the movie, and then they share a meal afterwards. Monika and Mark start to date, as they're seen at a carnival, at parks, and at the zoo. Things go so well that Monika makes the decision to get rid of Rob's body. She dismembers it in her bathtub, and puts the pieces in trash bags. But, just before she takes the bags back to Rob's grave she relents and keeps his severed head, and his genitals.
The romance continues. Monika shows Mark her family photo albums, which include many pictures of family and friends' burials and funerals. They also have sex, although Mark seems to enjoy himself much more than Monika. The next morning Mark goes into Monika's refrigerator while she's still sleeping, and he discovers Rob's preserved genitals. Later, after a bizarre dream sequence, we see Monika taking photos of Mark while he's hanging naked by his legs. Mark then meets with the female friend who stood him up at the movies. He says Monika is nice, but he's put off by some of her "perverse" habits. He then gets drunk at a bar, still bothered by Monika's leanings.
Back at Monika's apartment she's hosting a movie watching party with some friends, all of whom are women. These friends are necrophiliacs too, or at least they're tolerant of Monika's, as Rob's head is openly held up and then sat on the table. The video they're watching is footage of seals frolicking, followed by scenes of a dead seal being gruesomely cut up. Mark pops by unexpectedly, causing Monika's friends to leave. He insists upon watching the seal video they were just viewing. But, after only a few minutes he stops it, and is visibly upset and disgusted. Then we see Monika on the phone, talking to Mark. She invites him over to her place for the following evening, saying she'll explain everything. She spends the day walking on the beach, thinking, and looking at photos of Mark, and Rob's remains.
The big night arrives. Mark and Monika quickly start having sex. Monika maneuvers her way on top, and she pulls out the blade hidden under her bed. She cuts Mark's throat, which sends blood squirting all over the room, and onto Monika. She then quickly places a clip on Mark's penis to keep it firm, removes Mark's head, and puts Rob's in its place. And then, finally, we see her reach an orgasm, as she finishes having sex with Mark's death throe-kicking body, and Rob's head.
The final scene is at the hospital. A doctor walks up, and informs Monika that she's pregnant.
I'll start by discussing some of the problems with the movie. Admittedly, "Nekromantik 2" is a bit too long. The version I have is about 103 minutes, and some versions are a few minutes longer. I think several scenes could have been cut down some, such as the opening excavation scene, the dating scenes, and the scenes where Mark is at the bar. A leaner 90 minutes or so would have been a tighter version. Also, the film's subject matter is obviously disturbing, and tough to watch at points. Some people will be put off by the necrophilia themes completely, or others because this is shown graphically at times. Conversely, some horror gore enthusiasts might find "Nekromantik 2" to be too focused on the non-necrophilia scenes. These necrophilia-related scenes are definitely there, but most of the run time is not action, or gore, but instead seeing Monika and Mark dating, or going about their everyday lives. It's certainly not a thrill-a-minute slasher movie or anything--it's a slow and thoughtful look at necrophilia. So it might be too in the middle for the typical viewer--too disgusting and revolting for the casual viewer, but too character-driven and methodical for horror fiends.
But to me this was the film's strength. I thought the first one, "Nekromantik," was too obviously exploitative, too shocking for shock's sake for my taste. The characters in "Nekromantik" weren't fleshed out, or sympathetic. Consequently, I wasn't engaged by them. It was just grossness with no real tension. But "Nekromantik 2" changes all of that. Monika is clearly severely psychologically disturbed, and shouldn't be walking around free. At the end, after all, she brutally murders an innocent man, one who seemed to truly like her. But, at the same time, I found myself sympathizing with Monika quite a bit. She's struggling with her necrophilia the whole time. For a while she's able to "beat it," but it "wins" at the conclusion, as she goes off the deep end and commits a murder. But I still felt sorry for her, even as I dreaded and hated her for her crimes, and for what she does to Mark. All of this was much more interesting and compelling than the first film's characters, and plot.
You can even make the claim that "Nekromantik 2" is a twisted version of the romantic movie trope of the love triangle--Monika cares for both Mark and the deceased Rob. Who will she choose? Her final decision is a darkly comic compromise--she chooses both, by putting Rob's head on the dying body of Mark. For her perverse desires this is the best of both worlds.
As for any underlying symbolism, metaphor, and allegory in "Nekromantik 2" goes, there are many interpretations. You could easily make the case that Monika's sexual desires are symbolic of people who exhibit sexualities that society often disapproves of, such as homosexuality, sado-masochism, or fetishes like being a "furry." Just to be clear, I'm not saying that being gay, or into bondage, or dressing up like an animal is at all like wanting to have sex with a corpse, and murdering people to get such corpses. The former things are alternative sexual expressions, but as long as they're between consenting adults they're fine, both legally (in some countries, anyway), and morally, in my opinion. So it's a wild exaggeration, but is still a reasonable interpretation, I think. Watching Monika trying to "pass" by dating Mark in a normal way seems like people remaining in the closet, or trying to ignore their real sexual desires. She's basically fooling herself into thinking that she can be "normal," even though it's pretty clear that this ultimately won't work. I think the science is pretty clear--you can't change your sexuality, no matter how hard you try. At most you can deny yourself, and live a life of sexual dissatisfied frustration by ignoring your true needs. It's certainly that way for Monika.
Another bit of allegory is the re-unification of Germany, apparently. I don't know enough about that in detail, but reportedly German viewers can see quite a lot about those political issues in the film.
I find the brief scene with Monika's friends at the video watching party to be very interesting as well. Rob's head is sitting on the same table where the food is, and they're watching a graphically disturbing video while chowing down on chocolates and such. One of her friends even holds the head, and looks at a hung up tabloid article about Rob's nefarious life. As I mentioned in the recap, clearly they're either necrophiliacs themselves, or at least they're tolerant of it in Monika. Which is weird. On one level, it's progressive, and cool that they're tolerant of different lifestyles and sexuality, and care about and support their friend. But, on the other, they've gone way too far--they're not supporting someone who's just whimsically different, but instead is so deranged that she should be permanently locked up in a secure mental health facility or a prison.
Most people are probably aware that real life serial killers often have a fan base, and these fans often are the equivalent of "groupies." Some of these fans even marry the jailed killers, if it's legally allowed. In some ways Monika exhibits this, as Rob was a figure of some (in)fame, as the tabloids reported on his bizarre criminal career. In some ways, going after Rob was perhaps "moral"--you can't determine consent in a corpse, but presumably the necrophiliac Rob would be more likely to approve of someone later having sex with his dead body then the average person. Also, did the antics of Rob and his girlfriend inspire Monika? Did he in effect give her the idea to actually have sex with the dead?
Director Jorg Buttgereit also peppered the movie with a couple of real life examples of killing and necrophiles--one obvious, one more subtle. The movie opens with a quote by serial killer Ted Bundy, who as I recall may have had some necrophiliac tendencies, too. Additionally, there's a drawing on Monika's wall that I recognized. It's done by Karen Greenlee, a real life necrophiliac. She's the subject of an interview in Feral House's book "Apocalypse Culture," (first published in 1987, edited by Adam Parfrey) which is about a host of alternative and strange political and social views. (If you're wondering, "Apocalypse Culture" is odd, at times obscene and upsetting, but a warped-ly interesting read overall. But not for the easily, or even moderately, offended!)
"Nekromantik 2" does have some silly moments, to the extent of almost being plot holes. Most notably, Monika exhumes Rob's corpse in broad daylight. We even see a groundskeeper in the cemetery, so she could have been discovered at any moment. And then, after she dug him up, why did she leave the grave open, with all the dirt still piled on the side, and the coffin just sitting there?! It's still that way days, or even weeks later, when Rob's ex-girlfriend Betty discovers that someone beat her to stealing his body. And Monika even returns to put most of Rob's body back, chopped up in her trash bags. Why did she take the chance of returning to the crime scene? And why cut the body up, if she was just putting it back in the grave? It would have been simpler to just put the intact body back in, and refill the grave. Or cut the body up, put the pieces in trash bags, and put them in random dumpsters or something. To sum up, the security and the groundskeeper at that cemetery must be the laziest, most unobservant people ever!
Finally, there weren't many scenes with gore in "Nekromantik 2," but the ones that are there were quite effective. Rob's body is revolting, all decayed and drippy. Watching Monika kiss and lick him is difficult to watch. And when she starts cutting up the body it's particularly graphic and stomach churning. Especially the sound of the bones being cut and broken. And the final murder scene is well done, too. It's incredibly bloody, and it's disturbing to watch poor Mark's death throes. It's all very realistically done, considering the film's small budget. The music is surprisingly good, too--the recurring piano theme is rather haunting. All in all, I think the filmmakers really learned a lot in the years between "Nekromantik" and this sequel. The acting, script, cinematography, and special effects all improved significantly, had much better production value.
(END OF SPOILERS--SAFE FOR ALL READERS) Unfortunately, most of the cast and crew of "Nekromantik 2" had rather obscure, and/or brief careers. Director and co-writer Jorg Buttgereit did three other feature length movies--"Nekromantik" (1987), "Der Todesking" ("The Death King," 1990), and "Schramm" (1993). But after this he did little film making aside from some German television documentaries starting in 2002. (One was about Haruo Nakajima, the actor who portrayed Godzilla/Gojira in the classic Toho movies.) He did contribute a segment to the anthology film "German Angst" in 2015 as a comeback of sorts. Franz Rodenkirchen co-wrote Buttgereit's original four movies, but since then he has worked mainly in the script and continuity departments for other films/programs. The actors in "Nekromantik 2" didn't do much else, aside from appearing in some of Buttgereit's other original four movies. The biggest career is arguably held by Eva-Maria Kurz, who played one of Monika's "necro gang" friends. IMDB lists 127 credits for her, mostly in German television. Beatrice Manowski (Rob's girlfriend Betty) has 23 listed credits, again mostly in German television. The drunk in the bar was played by Florian Koerner Von Gustort, who has 22 producing credits. Probably the leanest acting resume is that of the star, Monika M., who played Monika. At least one of her very few acting roles was well done, and memorable.
Therefore, I think horror fans should give "Nekromantik 2" a look. It's a meditative, deliberate, character piece, about a woman with a bizarre and terrible sexual condition. It could also be characterized as a romantic art film, albeit one with a perverse twist. A movie about a blossoming love affair, punctuated by some scenes of grotesque and harrowing violence and gore. So if this sounds like the type of thing you might be interested in, check it out.
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