Anatomie 2

"Anatomie 2" (2003, Stefan Ruzowitzky, Strand Releasing) is a sequel to, you guessed it, "Anatomie". It's a German language body horror set in a Berlin hospital.

A young neurosurgeon called Jo (Barnaby Metschurat) moves to Berlin to make his big break. Quickly he manages to catch the attention of Dr. Müller-LaRousse (Herbert Knaup). The doctor invites the young man to join his research group, where Jo becomes not only acquainted with other young, inquiring minds, but becomes completely immersed in their licentious research, and therefore equally culpable if their immoral practices are found out.

However, when a fellow group member, who was having an attack of conscience, is found murdered it becomes apparent that the good Dr. may not suffer any dissension in his ranks...

I have admittedly not seen the first movie, but would definitely search it out now that I've seen its sequel. This film was so much fun. It has a strong plot, a good amount of fairly gruesome effects and a good cast of interesting and unusual characters. The film explores the ethics of research and science and the hunger for knowledge.

Jo's character is not only driven by his desire for success, but also for the desire to help his brother who has Muscular Dystrophy, giving the character a more rounded motive. His fellow researchers are all also driven by their own personal motivations. Be it sexual pleasure, vanity or fame.

A really fun film and one of the best random DVD finds I've had recently!

[Image: Strand Releasing]

Hani

The Tall Man

"The Tall Man" (2012, Pascal Laugier, Image Entertainment) is a thriller with a disturbing message masquerading as a horror film. It is not a horror film.

Beware, spoilers below...

A small former mining village called Cold Rock has seen a lot of child disappearances over the years. The villagers have associated these disappearances with an urban legend known as The Tall Man, a figure who is seen taking the children into the woods where they disappear without a trace. Jessica Biel plays Julia, the town's nurse. We see Julia's son, David, being kidnapped and follow her as she fights for his return...

The film starts off as a horror, but quickly boils back to a confusing mystery plot that seemed to be going in a different direction, before quickly jumping in yet another direction and passing into a plot quicksand pit that delivers a garbled message about child abduction being a good thing? Provided, apparently, that the children are taken from the poor and delivered to the rich. Besides this somewhat misguided premise, the film suffers from a jumpy, complex plot which wasn't intriguing enough to make the big twist very forceful.

For me, the only redeeming feature of this film is Biel's character showing injuries throughout the film that didn't miraculously heal themselves in that good ol' fashioned Hollywood manner.

[Image: Image Entertainment]

Hani