NEKROMANTIK 2

Directed by Jörg Buttgereit
Written by Jörg Buttgereit & Frank Rodenkirchen
Produced by Manfred O. Jelinski
Photography by Manfred O. Jelinski
Cast: Monika M., Mark Reeder, Simone Spörl & Wolfgang MŸller

1991/103 mins/Color/Stereo
1.33:1/German/Germany/NTSC Region 1

Review from the Barrel Entertainment DVD

Monika seems like a normal young woman living in Berlin. After she reads about the death of Rob (from the first NEKROMANTIK) in the newspaper which is hanging on her wall, she digs up his corpse and takes it home. Monika is turned on by death, she strips and start caressing the decomposed corpse, making love to it before cleaning it. Mark is a young man who has the "fun" job of dubbing porn films. Along with his female co-worker, they moan, groan and palm slapping into a microphone in time with the sex being on screen in front of them. He meets Monika at the entrance of a theater where he was supposed to meet someone else. They go see a pretencious black and white "art" film called "My Dinner with Vera" which is about a naked couple sitting at a table talking about eggs and birds. Soon Monica and Mark are a couple forming a rather unusual relationship.

Monica has to decides between her love for Mark or the one for the corpse. She dispose of Rob's corpse by cutting it but she keeps the head and dick in her fridge. Monica and some of her friends watch a video of a seal autopsy (real footage here folks, so it is not for everyone's taste). Mark finds it sickening and want her to turn it off but she claims that its turning her on. Later as they make love, Monika decides to change Mark's head with the one of Rob in one very brutal and gory finale.

This sequel starts with black and white footage of Rob' suicide from the first film. The first 20 some minutes are dialogue free giving the film an almost dream like feel. There's a cool scene with Betty (Beatrice M. from the first one) coming to take the corpse of her boyfriend but finds out that someone though of it faster. While the first film was from a man's point of view, this time we get the opposite as we follow the haunting and sick life of Monica. Jörg clearly got more money for this sequel and it shows. The corpse is quite amazing looking, there's some cool 360 degree circular pan which he used a lot years later SCHRAMM and this time he got to hire real actors.

As always, Barrel Entertainment have release a great DVD. The film is presented in its original 1.33:1 aspect ratio which was digitally remastered from the original negative under the supervision of producer Manfred O. Jelinski. The image is stunning, with rich colors, bloody reds, well rendered skin tones, absolutely no signs of compression or artifacts. A new German stereo audio track sounds good but nothing groundbreaking. There's also the original mono audio track available. We get removable and easy to read English subtitles. The film is separated in 28 chapters, comes in a keep case and with a cool 6 pages booklet with liner notes from Buttgereit and David Kerekes. Once again, there's tons of cool extras on the disc; a fun and informative commentary track with Buttgereit, Franz Rodenkirchen, Monika M. and Mark Reeder. The Making of Nekromantik is a good 25 minutes documentary on the film with lost of behind the scenes footage. We also get a German radio interviews with Buttgereit and Rodenkirchen which is subtitled. A videoclip for the band The Krupps, directed by Rodenkirchen and starring a short haired Monika M., Manne: The Movie which is a funny short film from Buttgereit with English subs for the first time. There's a huge still gallery of around 100 photos, outtakes reel, trailers for NEKROMANTIK, DER TODESKING, NEKROMANTIK 2 and SCHRAMM. The main menu is nicely done with music and animations.

But wait there's more! One of the highlight in every Buttgereit's film is the superb soundtrack. Well this 20,000 limited edition DVD of NEKROMANTIK 2 comes with a second disc with the soundtracks to both NEKROMANTIK and NEKROMANTIK 2! The disc features 31 tracks and sounds great! I can't recommend enough this great DVD from Barrel Entertainment. I hope that they will release DER TODESKING on DVD soon and well have all of Buttgereit's unique work on DVD.

Thanks to Barrel Entertainment

Image:

Audio:

Extras:

Packaging:

This Film Features:

Review by Kim Dubuisson. All Right Reserved. 2003. ©

You can purchase this DVD at our official sponser by clicking on the image above.