THE LIGHTER SIDE OF JORG BUTTGEREIT: FOUR FILMS

Over the years, Balladeer’s Blog has reviewed several of Jorg Buttgereit’s envelope-pushing, taboo-breaking horror films. Because I review everything from the extreme fringes like Buttgereit (at left) to mild, even family-friendly items let me offer a warning for readers who don’t like extreme violence or extreme concepts. If you fall into that category, please DO NOT look up my long-ago reviews of Jorg’s most notorious films and then blast me because the subject matter appalls you. I am giving fair warning about what they’re like.

On the other hand, all readers might enjoy THIS look at some of Buttgereit’s much lighter – but still bizarre – productions, many from his days of guerilla film-making in West Berlin, covertly pulling off some footage on both sides of the Berlin Wall.

CAPTAIN BERLIN: RETTER DER WELT (1982) – Buttgereit was only 18 when he made this 10-minute short film. He wrote, directed and played the title superhero with Bela B. from the German punk band Die Ärzte co-starring as Mister Synth. This work about West Berlin’s only superhero fighting a monster from outer space is of interest only because of Buttgereit’s and Bela’s involvement.

        Jorg’s youth and inexperience show in this fun, anarchic but amateurish effort. Back when this flick was first made, its satirical combination of Adam West’s Batman series with the low-budget charm of Ray Dennis Steckler’s Rat Pfink a Boo Boo and a “piss off” punk sensibility earned it a cult following. Here in 2023, such intentional camp has been done to death.

        Decades later, Buttgereit would revive the Captain Berlin character in one of his stage show-radio show hybrids, titled Captain Berlin versus Hitler. That production – which I will review at some point in the future – was eventually filmed and released to theaters and on dvd.  

HORROR HEAVEN (1984) – Jorg starred as an old-fashioned Horror Movie Host introducing several horror shorts of his own making in this 24-minute project. Buttgereit structured it as a salute to Boris Karloff but with some gore thrown in.

        This production at last showed the flashes of genius in the future auteur with shorts about mummies, Frankenstein, a cannibal girl and Gazorra, a stop-motion item sending up Godzilla movies and starring Daktari Lorenz.

        I rate Horror Heaven much higher than most other reviewers out of respect for the many obstacles that Buttgereit had to overcome putting together his independent films. That he got ANY film projects completed with so few resources and the hassle of operating in a divided city makes Jorg a noteworthy figure in cinema history in my opinion. And that’s maybe even without the notoriety from his gore-drenched later works and the infamous German Supreme Court decision.

SO WAR DAS S.O.36 (1984) -A 90-minute documentary about Berlin’s iconic S.O.36 punk rock club. Really immersing himself in the West Berlin art underground of the 1980s, Buttgereit co-directed this film with Manfred O. Jelinski.

        A perfectly serviceable presentation about the German punk scene of the era, featuring footage of live performances and interviews with musical acts like The 4 Invisibles 5, Carombolage, The Yellows, Kiss VI, Malaria, Ziggy XY and more.

        This collaborative effort provided a necessary polish to Jorg’s rough style without losing the energy of the director’s earlier 13-minute short Der Trend (1982), about the punk band Die Ärzte.

HOT LOVE (1985) – Coming out just two years before Nekromantik would make Jorg Buttgereit a virtual legend, this 40-minute movie shows the way Jorg’s crude but promising talents were improving by leaps and bounds with every project. Even his always effective music is more impressive this go-round. 

        The story involves a young man (Daktari Lorenz again) who is deeply in love with a woman whom he spots cheating on him with another man (played by Buttgereit). Daktari goes berserk and attacks the “other man” but is beaten up by him.

        Filled with hate and frustration, Daktari takes his own life but is reborn through the baby that his lady love gives birth to shortly after his suicide. The artificial birth canal that Jorg and company devised for close-ups of the freakish offspring entering the world is still cited when horror fans talk about disturbing practical effects.  

        The birthing scene and the subsequent rampage of the mutated child are pretty grotesque and the remainder of the film is downbeat, so be prepared. 

Among Buttgereit’s other pre-fame shorts are the 27-minute Der Gollob (1983), an orgy of makeup effects in a story about Ajax cleanser getting mixed in with ingredients at an Italian restaurant, thus spawning a killer pizza-monster; and Bloody Excess in the Fuhrerbunker (1982), an 8-minute item about Adolf Hitler planning to resurrect dead Germans to fight for him. His first two zombies instead turn on him and kill him.   

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