Perfume: The Story of a Murderer (2006)
Killer with a Hyper-Acute Sense of Smell
An extraordinary Tom Tykwer film starring Ben Whishaw as an 18th Century man who has a hyper-acute sense of smell
German Cinema
Possession (1981)
Marriage Breakdown/Surrealism/Monsters
Bafflingly surreal film from Andrzej Zulawski in which Isabelle Adjani gives birth to a tentacled monster in a subway. Nobody has any idea what the film is about but it has become a cult work since
Postal (2007)
Videogame Adaptation/Bad Taste Satire
Another Uwe Boll videogame adaptation, a satire where Zack Ward sets out on a shooting spree. Boll sets out to offend as many people as possible but somehow forgets to make any of it funny
Prey (2021)
Trampers Pursued by a Hunter
Not to be confused with the recent Predator sequel. this is a German survival horror where a group of trampers abruptly find themselves hunted in the woods
Prince Valiant (1997)
Sword and Sorcery/Comic-Strip Adaptation
The classic comic-strip receives a disastrous film adaption where director Anthony Hickox plays everything for campy silliness
Prisoners of the Sun (2013)
Egyptian Tomb-Raiding Adventure/Ancient Astronauts
The director of Battlefield Earth teams up with Uwe Boll to deliver a sub-Indiana Jones adventure about venturing into an Egyptian pyramid in search of Ancient Astronauts. The tomb raider cliches are so tired and creaky that the film fails to generate any excitement
Replace (2017)
Woman Needs to Steal Other People’s Skin
Undeniably creepy film co-written by Richard Stanley about a woman with a skin condition who finds she can only return to normal by stealing the skin from others
Requiem (2006)
Possible Demonic Possession/True Story
This should be mandatory viewing after watching The Exorcism of Emily Rose. While that film rewrote the tragedy of Anneliese Michel as a film about possession, this German-made production sets things straight and tells a story about a girl with mental health issues
The Return of Dr Mabuse (1961)
Criminal Mastermind
The first of five West German-made sequels featuring Fritz Lang’s great criminal mastermind Dr Mabuse, who this time is masterminding a plot to create mind controlled zombies
Robots (2023)
Android Doubles Comedy
A comedy variant on android/A.I. themes where two people use robot doubles for romantic subterfuge only for the two androids to elope together
Rohtenburg (2006)
True-Life German Cannibal
Film based on true-life German cannibal Armin Meiwes who met a man online and by mutual agreement killed and ate his body
Run Lola Run (1998)
Alternate Timelines
Tom Tykwer’s visually inventive variant on the alternate timelines theme with Franka Potente trying to replay events to save her boyfriend’s life
Schramm (1993)
Serial Killer
Jörg Buttgereit made the notorious NEKRomantik films and is a director about an uncompromising and determined to outrage as possible. This inevitably falls in the shadow of NEKRomantik but is a grim and disturbing in its own right in its kitchen sink depiction of the life of a serial killer
Seed (2007)
Executed Killer's Revenge
Uwe Boll ventures into Torture Porn territory with this tale of a brutish serial killer who returns from the electric chair on a trail of vengeance against his condemners
The 7th Dwarf (2014)
Animation/Adventures of the Seven Dwarves
German animated film about the adventures of Snow White’s Seven Dwarves. Lightweight and trivial, this feels like it has come along ten years too late to the fad for fairytale parodies and mash-ups we had in the mid-2000s with films like Shrek and Hoodwinked!
Siegfried (1924)
Epic Heroic Legend
The first of a two-part silent Fritz Lang film based on the Teutonic legend. Lang directs with an epic visual majesty that rivals today’s Lord of the Rings films
Sky Sharks (2020)
Nazi Zombies on Flying Sharks
This has been conceived as the ultimate modern exploitation film featuring Nazi zombie piloting flying sharks. Think Iron Sky by way of Sharknado. The results are highly entertaining
Slasher (2007)
German Backwoods Brutality
A German-made copy of the Backwoods Brutality cycle that only rehashes clches and frequently verges on the amateurish in execution
Snowflake (2017)
Meta-Fiction/Hitmen Discover They Are Characters in a Screenplay
A insanely madcap work of meta-fiction. Imagine stupider versions of John Travolta and Samuel L. Jackson from Pulp Fiction mixed with Stranger Than Fiction as they discover they are fictional characters
Spare Parts (1979)
Missing Person/Organ Harvesting Scheme
A German thriller about a newlywed couple in the US where the husband is abducted and the wife’s attempts to find him take her into the midst of an illicit organ harvesting operation
The Student of Prague (1913)
Evil Doppelganger
Classic German silent film where a man sells his shadow, which then becomes a malevolent doppelganger that torments his life
The Student of Prague (1926)
Pact with the Devil/Malevolent Doppelganger
A classic of the German Expressionist era about a poor student who sells his shadow to The Devil, only to have it become a malevolent doppelganger. As with much of the work to emerge from this era, the film manages directorial effects that still look amazing today
Stung (2015)
Giant Mutated Wasps
Likeable variant on the giant bug film – concerning giant mutated wasps, no less. This is largely predicated around some accomplished creature effects and having something gooey happening every few minutes
Tarzan (2013)
Jungle Hero/Animation
An animated version of the Tarzan story shot in the motion capture process. Some of the modernisations might have Edgar Rice Burroughs turning in his grave, nevertheless the animation is excellent and the film works well as a technologically upgraded version of the Disney film
Tarzan and the Lost City (1998)
Jungle Hero
A German-made Tarzan film that resurrects most of the adventure film tropes to negligible effect. As Tarzan, Caspar Van Dien looks like an Ivy League college student in the jungle.
Tattoo (2002)
German Serial Killer Thriller
German thriller in which an investigating detective is drawn into an underground world where people are being killed by collectors for their tattoos
The Tenderness of the Wolves (1973)
True-Life German Serial Killer
Interesting portrait of a true-life serial killer that was produced under the auspices of Rainer Werner Fassbinder concerning a vampire-like gay killer who operated in Germany during the 1920s. Not without some shock value, this is more arthouse film than it is horror
The Testament of Dr Mabuse (1933)
Mind-Controlling Criminal Mastermind
The second of Fritz Lang;s films about the criminal mastermind Dr Mabuse, which was banned under the Nazi regime and forced Lang to flee the country. Not quite the equal of its predecessor, Lang is still on fine form and makes an exciting crime melodrama
The Testament of Dr Mabuse (1962)
Mind-Controlling Criminal Mastermind
Third of the German thrillers of the 1960s featuring the criminal mastermind Dr Mabuse, a remake of the 1933 film where Mabuse continues his criminal schemes via mind control despite being confined to an asylum
The Thief Lord (2006)
Orphan Thieves Fantasy
Children’s film made with care and attention, written and produced to an adult level, far superior to 95% of the US studio efforts
The Thirteenth Floor (1999)
Virtual Reality
A Roland Emmerich produced Virtual Reality film that toys with some ideas that almost make it a great SF film before cliches and a bad twist ending take over
The 1000 Eyes of Dr. Mabuse (1960)
Criminal Mastermind
The third film about the title criminal mastermind from Fritz Lang. Here Lang returns to a radically different Germany to the one he fled in the 1930s, the West Germany of the Cold War, to deliver a creepily paranoid work about the surveillance society
The Three Investigators in the Secret of Terror Castle (2009)
Juvenile Detectives Investigate a Spooky Mansion
The Three Investigators books were an essential part of my youth. This does a fair job of remaining faithful to the stories, albeit with the addition of some grating modernisations, and creates reasonable atmosphere as they investigate a seemingly spooky mansion
The Tin Drum (1979)
Boy Who Refuses to Grow Up/Nazi Allegory
Volker Schlondorff’s adaptation of Gunther Grass’s darkly funny book about a young boy in Nazi Germany who refuses to grow up
Der Todesking (1990)
Anthology of Deaths and Suicides
From Jörg Buttgereit, director of the notorious NEKRomantik, an anthology that depicts various scenes of death and suicide. Essentially the original version of The ABCs of Death
Transfer (2010)
Future Where the Aging Swap Minds Into Younger Bodies
A strong and intelligent science-fiction film about a future where the aging buy younger bodies from the Third World to transfer their minds into
Trunk (2023)
Girl Imprisoned in a Car Trunk
Gripping German thriller with a woman abducted and imprisoned in a car trunk. Like Buried, this takes place entirely inside the trunk with her using her phone to try to get help
Universal Soldier (1992)
Undead Super-Soldiers/Action
The first studio film from Roland Emmerich, a loud, noisy action featuring Jean-Claude Van Damme and Dolph Lundgren as Vietnam Vets resurrected as super-soldiers
The Vampire Happening (1971)
Vampire Comedy
Freddie Francis was one of the finest stylists of the Anglo-horror cycle. Here he makes a comedy spoofing the vampire film that comes out feeling like Benny Hill routines running around a big castle
Vengeance (1962)
Evil Disembodied Brain
The third film version of Curt Siodmak’s novel Donovan’s Brain, this abandons much of the book. Not a terribly interesting effort, mostly noted as the directorial debut of Anglo-horror regular Freddie Francis
The Vengeance of Fu Manchu (1967)
Super-Villain
The third of the fifilms with Christopher Lee as the Chinese super-villain Fu Manchu and generally the point the series started to go downhill
Violent Shit (1989)
Splatter and Gore/Psycho Film
Boundary-pushing film that consists almost entirely of very enthusiastic splatter and gore scenes. Amateurishly shot on video nevertheless this gained a cult following and produced sequels
Waxworks (1924)
Historical Anthology/German Expressionism
A classic of the silent German Expressionist era, telling three tales throughout history – about the Caliph of Baghdad, Ivan the Terrible and Jack the Ripper – all set around the locale of a wax museum
We Are the Night (2010)
Chic Vampires
Slick and visually exciting German vampire film that recaptures something of the chic sumptuousness of The Hunger. Perhaps The Hunger by way of Sex and the City set in a world of conspicuous fashion consumption where vampirism represents women’s ultimate empowerment
The Wild Blue Yonder (2005)
Alien Visitors/Space Journey Mockumentary
Eccentric Werner Herzog film where he tries to convince us that footage from a space shuttle mission and taken under the polar ice cap is documentary footage of a trip to explore an alien planet
Wings of Desire (1987)
Angels
Wim Wenders’ exquisitely lovely film about angels that hover over West Berlin invisibly observing the human condition. One of the most beautiful of all paeans to the human condition.
Woman in the Moon (1929)
Expedition to the Moon
A silent film from Fritz Lang where he sets out to depict a realistic attempt (at least in terms of what was known in the era) to build and launch a rocket to The Moon. Lang directs with an epic grandeur that still takes back today.
Womb (2010)
Cloning Film
The finest film made yet on the subject of cloning. A beautifully directed film that deals with the tricky ethical issues when Eva Green decides to give birth to a clone of her lover Matt Smith and raise him as her son.
World on a Wire (1973)
Virtual Reality
Fascinating work from Rainer Werner Fassbinder, one of the earliest depictions of Virtual Reality on screen and one that sets most of the genre’s tropes in place