The death tasters
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| Original title | The death tasters |
| Country of production | Germany |
| original language | German |
| Publishing year | 1979 |
| length | 81 minutes |
| Age rating | FSK 18 |
| Rod | |
| Director | Richard Jackson |
| script | Richard Jackson |
| production | Ernst Ritter by Theumer Artur Brauner for Cine-Tele Team (Munich) and Alfa-Film (Berlin) |
| music | Joachim Ludwig |
| camera | Joe Stemmer |
| cut |
Charly Fugunt Elvi Tillack Christina Schulz |
| occupation | |
| |
Die Totenschmecker is a German film drama by Ernst Ritter von Theumer, shot in 1978 and set in a peasant setting .
action
In a rural area in the Tyrolean Alps. Felix and Kurt are two brothers and sons of a large farmer who is still running the farm at an advanced age. The farmer's third son is called Franz and is clearly mentally retarded. While Felix, as the firstborn, can hope to inherit the farm one day, Kurt, who is not bound, has no prospect of anything. He works in a sawmill. Felix and the maid Rosa had an illegitimate child, the teenage Anna, usually called Annerl. Again and again Rosa tries to persuade the large farmers to hand over the farm to her Felix ahead of time, after all, he is already 50 years old, but he is vehemently opposed to it.
When Anna returns from school through a forest path with a prejudiced blacksmith on her lips about “stealing gypsies” who are work-shy and unkempt, she promptly meets one of them. It is the charming, young Joschi who plays the violin in the middle of nowhere. She is fascinated by the boy reciting poetry and follows him to his clan, who are camping in a caravan and in tents, who are currently sitting around the campfire, full of clichés, playing the violin and guitar while eating and drinking. Only late, when it has already got dark, does Maria come home, safely accompanied by Joschi. While Annerl quickly sneaks up to the dying old grandmother to avoid discussions with her father, the farmer clan complains at the same moment about the “rabble of gypsies” that “hang around” in the area. That same evening, the mentally retarded Franz sneaks around the house, peers from the outside through the window into the dimly lit room of the Annerl and watches as she prepares for sleep. Then Franz penetrates the chamber of the girl lying in bed. Anna is still wide awake and starts screaming. In a matter of seconds, the peasant family is standing around Annerl's bed and learns of Franz's attempted advances. The old farmer and his two other sons run into the cowshed and beat up Franz.
The next morning two of the gypsy women went to the farm to ask for some milk and eggs. Since they didn't find anyone there at first, they went around the site to look for one of the farmers. While one of them asks the farmer's wife for milk, the other enters the barn in search of eggs and discovers the beaten up Franz who is locked in a shed. She screams in shock because she feels Franz's crazy look and his behavior as threatening. The peasants rush to the screaming woman and see how Franz has obviously strangled the stranger and is carrying her corpse outside. The other gypsy yells “You killed her” and runs off to call the police. The old farmer orders Felix to run after her and hold her. There is a scramble, where the woman defends himself violently. Finally, Felix kills the gypsy in a rage by hitting her head several times on a stone. To make matters worse, the extremely god-fearing grandmother, dressed all in black, appears and cries “I curse you”. Rosa puts the old woman to bed, who lies down to die. At the same time, Anna and Joschi get to know each other better, and things crackle between them.
One of the traveling people is now looking for the two missing women and is only mocked by the maid Rosa as a “dirty gypsy”. Through Rosa's contrived behavior, he correctly concludes that the maid must lie when she claims that none of the women had arrived here at court. The head of the gypsy clan instructs two of the men to look intensively for the two women killed by the farmer's sons. The old farmer, who suspects that the gypsies will not let the matter rest, makes a fatal decision: “We have no other choice: them or us,” he says, and calls for all of the gypsies to be killed. Meanwhile Anna comes up and shouts “Grandmother dies, quickly, get the priest!”. While the grandmother waits in vain for the pastor and the final unction, the two gypsy men appear and are both shot by the old farmer with his rifle. Anna rushes over and shouts “Grandmother has died!”. She sees the old farmer and her father Felix heaving the four bodies of the murdered men and women onto a carriage and screams in horror. Finally, Kurt also returns home from work in the sawmill and sees the terrible deeds his brothers and father have committed. You drive to the place by the lake where the gypsies have set up camp. After Kurt has refused to shoot the allegedly last member of the clan, the gypsy boss, his brother Felix also performs this bloody act. He is observed by Joschi hiding behind a tree. The old farmer and his sons then vacate the small camp and pack the five corpses of the clan members in the caravan and sink it into the lake. Since Joschi had previously grabbed his violin case and played it in the distance, the peasant murderers know that one of the gypsies who can testify to their murderous behavior must have got away from them.
The murderous peasant family sits together at the table and thinks about how to get hold of the last gypsy. At the grandmother's funeral, Felix briefly spots the escaped Joschi. Anna, who is also present, can no longer get the pictures of the murdered gypsies out of her head and calls her relatives "Murderer!" opposite. In the face of this unsafe situation, the farmers decide to hide the dead from the lake again in order to burn their corpses. Meanwhile, Rosa is sent to the village to see if anyone knows anything about the gypsy boy. On the way there, Franz lies in wait for her, pounces on her and rapes and strangles the maid. At dusk the caravan is towed out of the lake again. They want to burn the corpses inside, and the old farmer suffers severe burns. In the distance you can see and hear Joschi playing the gypsy tunes on the violin on a ridge. The old man is being driven to a hospital. Felix is now eager to catch the last witness to his murderous acts and climbs up the rock at a gorge, where he suspects Joschi. In a dream (nightmare), Anna sees the boy being pursued by her father falling the rugged rock into the depths. She wakes up pale with horror in the presence of Kurt, who is supposed to look after her on Felix's behalf. Outside in the dark forest, the mad Franz, who is still wandering around the area, discovers Joschi's violin and takes it for himself.
Meanwhile Felix comes back to the farm and apparently Anna's nightmare has been confirmed, because he claims that he finished off and buried the last of the gypsies. While the two farmer brothers celebrate their crimes with a drink, Rosa's body is found. There is an argument between Kurt and Felix over a drink. Felix, who is already looking forward to becoming the new builder as the eldest son, is reminded by his brother that he could just as easily run the farm, especially since he hadn't murdered any of the gypsies. It is not without good reason that Felix assumes that Kurt is trying to blackmail him. Kurt doesn't get any further, goes out into the dark night and wants to continue with the car. Felix, who rightly suspects that his brother wants to go to the police and report him, shoots the moving car and injures Kurt, who is able to escape the vehicle. In the dark barn there is a showdown between the peasant “Cain and Abel”, in which the younger brother kills the older one with a pitchfork. Eventually the wounded Kurt also succumbs to his injuries. Then an ambulance pulls up and in it is Franz, who was obviously picked up in the forest. He carried Joschi's violin with him. The policeman who is also present asks Anna where her father is. She in turn only asks about Joschi, the gypsy. But the policeman doesn't know anything about gypsies in the area, they haven't seen any here. He says: “Gypsies are like birds, they don't stay in one place for long”. Joschi always said that, replies Annerl.
Production notes
Die Totenschmecker , also known under the no less lurid titles The Valley of the Lawless and Der Irre vom Zombiehof , was filmed on 26 days between August 28 and September 30, 1978 in Kitzbühel and the surrounding area. The completion took place in November of the same year. The strip premiered on February 22, 1979 in the Savoy Cinema in Augsburg. On ZDF , the strip was shown slightly shortened under the more neutral title Das Mädchen vom Hof .
Producer and director Theumer was also in charge of production, while actress Monica Teuber was in charge of production .
After the Italian exploitation trash Ich, die Nun und die Schweinhunde (1972), Theumer worked again with the two Austrian actors Herb Andress and William Berger . His co-producer Teuber had one of the leading female roles at the time.
Reviews
“A widowed farmer lives on a remote farm in the Austrian mountains with three sons, of whom the feeble-minded youngest is shielded from the environment. In this milieu, one lives from prejudices that erupt in an orgy of violence when the mentally handicapped strangles a gypsy girl. In order to cover up the crime, the family exterminates the entire gypsy clan who are camped nearby. A sensationally pointed, gross violent drama, staged and played mediocre. "
On Schnittberichte.com it says: “A rare, curious (backwoods) homeland drama with thriller elements and a gloomy mood. Plump, sometimes quite boring and not really good, but not as bad as first assumed. "
Individual evidence
- ↑ Die Totenschmecker in the Lexicon of International Films
- ↑ Die Totenschmecker on schnittberichte.com
Web links
- Die Totenschmecker in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- Die Totenschmecker at filmportal.de