Peter Mckain I am initially underwhelmed by Der Todesking (The Death King). So we are presented with 7 stories, one for each day of the week. Every story is depicting suicide, with cuts of a slowly decaying corpse(made from pigs guts and strawberry pudding) in between. So what we basically get is an anti-suicide movie made on a shoe- string budget it does work quite well for what its trying to achieve with the budget they had. However, Its a bit of a hit and miss with some of the stories some of the scenes tend to drag on and one day which was Thursday was just shots of the bridge in Germany called the suicide bridge. The director himself said that its very hard to capture what he had in his head due to the budget restraints. We also have a sneaky homage to the Ilsa films which are banned in Germany and a nice shootout at a cinema. The decomposition of the corpse looks great and its nice to watch you'd almost think it was real. The same skeleton was used from necromantic and the scene was shot at 1 frame per hour. As for sound, they repeat a rather depressing song over and over but it doesn't really get annoying. check it out if you're a film student or interested in the themes presented here but i can't recommend it personally.

EVOL666 DER TODESKING is not one of my favorite Jorg Buttgereit film - but still is an interesting film dealing with suicide and it's reasons and ramifications. Those looking for a gore-fest, or exploitation in the style of the NEKROMANTIK films or SCHRAMM will probably be disappointed. DER TODESKING is definitely an "art-house" style film, so those that need linear, explainable narratives need not apply...The basic concept of DER TODESKING is that there is an "episode" for each day of the week that revolves around a strange chain letter that apparently causes people to commit suicide, interspersed with scenes of a slowly decomposing corpse...There are some very well done and thought provoking scenes, including the man talking about the "problems" with his wife, and the concert massacre (which unfortunately lost some of it's "power" on me, because I was too busy laughing at the SCORPIONS look-alike band on stage...). But seriously - this is a sometimes beautiful (the scene that shows different angles of that huge bridge is particularly effective - especially if you understand the significance of the scene, and that the names shown are of people that actually committed suicide from jumping from the bridge...), sometimes confusing, sometimes silly (the SHE WOLF OF THE SS rip-off is pretty amusing), sometimes harrowing (I found the scene of the guy talking to the girl in the park about his wife particularly effective) film that is more of an "experience" then just entertainment, as many of these "art" films are meant to be. Still, I didn't find DER TODESKING to be as strong as NEKROMANTIK or SCHRAMM, and would probably put it on relatively even footing with NEKROMANTIK 2 in terms of my personally "enjoyment level". Definitely worth a look to any Buttgereit or "art" film fan. If you dig this type of film - check out SUBCONSCIOUS CRUELTY - in my opinion the BEST art-house/horror film that I've seen. 7/10 for DER TODESKING

andrewharper-1 I just can't agree with the above comment - there's lots of interesting and indeed amazing filmic imagery in this one, it has an unusual structure and moves well toward a frightening climactic sequence that is notable for it's effective use of silence. What's more, it explores the odd impulse of suicide in a very frank way, not pulling any punches in what it shows, yet not dwelling and over-sensationalising the subject matter. it has hints of documentary about it as well as horror and art-house cinema, and deserves a place amongst the canon of 'different' horror films like The Blair Witch Project and the original Ring (both of which it predates and could well be an unacknowledged influence on). It's definitely worth seeing if you're interested in the edges of horror cinema.

PeteTheGod Excellent episode movie ala Pulp Fiction. 7 days - 7 suicides. It doesnt get more depressing than this. Movie rating: 8/10 Music rating: 10/10