I recently had the pleasure of re-watching the first European horror movie I ever saw, and I have to say, this will always be a great movie watching experience for me.
The story begins as student Paula Henning (the excellent Franka Potente) wins a place at an exclusive modern University in Hidelberg to study the titular subject.
At first Paula is excited and honoured, but she soon starts to suspect that something strange is going on.
Some of Paula’s friends have gone missing, and when an acquaintance turns up on her guerney, the bloodshed really begins!!
Basically, the film is a mix of ‘The Skulls’, ‘Scream’, and ‘Psycho’ because it’s about a psycho member of a secret society terrorizing a bunch of teens in a modern setting.
The locations and sets are amazing, the lighting beautiful, the cast wonderful and the film successfully manages to blend every element on offer into the perfect splatter cocktail!!
My favourite scene, which involves the characters Gretchen and Phil in the lab after hours, perfectly demonstrates Director Stefan Ruzowitsky’s ability at setting up and executing the perfect fright / chase scene.
The film is not overly graphic, but the anatomy subjects alone were enough to put me off food, and there is an ample amount of blood too.
Despite what other people may think of the film, it had the perfect amount of genre conventions to ensure that I had fun watching it.
OVERALL SUMMARY
The Producers set out to prove that the horror genre is not exclusively a product of America, and in my opinion they have succeeded.
