Angst (1983) is one of my favourite horror films of all time. This very disturbing German horror picture is a true gem. The camera work for me is one of the many things that make this film so great. The camera feels very over the shoulder and gets you up close and personal with the disturbing events that take place. Plenty of facial shots also really capture the essence of the main character. It's honestly not hard to tell the man is mentally disturbed. The actor who plays the main character is beyond perfect in the role, looking very sly and demented. Plus the narration that this character gives us throughout the whole movie is simply pure evil. I felt as if I was watching a real life serial murder happen before my eyes, which is exactly what makes this film so disturbing. It's not heavy on gore and nudity but the manner in which it was filmed and narrated is definitely disturbing to me. since the film at it's core is a character study that follows a deeply disturbed serial killer, there isn't much of a plot here. this however doesn't detract from the film it really just strengthens it. you feel far more immersed in the character and his thoughts because there is no plot for you to pay attention to. this makes for a very real and in depth character study about a mentally unstable man. topped off by excellent casting and acting. All that's left for me to say is, go watch it. You will not be disappointed!The verdict: 10/10 a perfectly disturbing masterpiece

Word on the street is this is a super intense, gruelling, claustrophobic serial killer film. They're not lying. But it's important to get to note why, especially in this case: why this type of violence enthralls so much? And I mean apart from any particular on-screen nastiness. More virulent films have been made, much nastier. Why this fascinates is a completely different beast than say, something like Hostel. It's the easiest thing to make us cringe and shy away, but to fervently want to keep watching?The popular opinion is this works so well exactly because of how contained and straight-forward. There are no distractions from the concentrated moment we first encounter: a inmate giving himself a shave on his day of parole. There are no allusions to anything else but private madness and nothing to escape to for comfort or respite, except perhaps sheer exhaustion. This man is going to go on a crime spree again as soon as he's out of prison, we can tell this much. We can tell it's going to unravel the way we secretly hope it does.Well, this is fine and makes some sense. But doesn't adequately explain to my mind. No, why this works so viscerally - and ties in with other interests of mine in film - I believe has all to do with the cinematic eye.Now most films operate on the assumption that you want to experience a world as real as possible. Every advance in cinematic technology - sound, color, the recent fad of 3D - is a step in that direction. We want to escape more vividly and more urgently than ever. And what most films do to abet that escape is to let loose a few threads of story and place, hopefully open enough if we are in caring hands, that we can be trusted to attach ourselves from own experience. The tighter the weave of the threads from that point on, the closer we are lassoed to the cinematic world. Editing and camera are assigned invisible ways; they have to work without us getting to notice.The Soviets changed all that very early in the game. Here a very world was assembled by the eye. There was no story, it was all a matter of calligraphic (dynamic overlapping) watching. Welles, and less famously Sternberg before him, unpacked these notions by letting it fall on the eye of the camera to join fragments together.(this particular eye was first conceived by the Buddhist but that's another story altogether).Now this is rumored to be the DP's project working under an alias, a Polish man who knows the camera. The opening shot exhibits masterful knowledge of Welles; a crane shot that establishes location by joining together many different planes of perspective. It would have been a film to watch with just this mode, that others like Argento and DePalma exercised in adventurous flourishes of spatial exploration.It's actually a little more elaborate than that. We have two eyes instead of the one. The first is the killer's eye, tightly screwed and always at eye-level as he prowls around. Interior monologue plays out in voice-over, itself taken from the diaries of an actual killer, and meant to recast everything as internal space: victims are an invalid, an old woman and her daughter, each one mapping to a person that deeply wounded in the past as we find out. So we have exceedingly tormented soul spilled out and contorting physical space, very much like Zulawski practiced. Another Pole, another piece of the puzzle.The second eye you will notice is always mounted on a crane and pulled upwards in steep ascends. A bird's eye far removed from human madness, which is the Buddhist eye of woodblock prints. To the film's credit, and this is a lot of its power for me, it remains abstract enough that we may use this perspective as we are inclined: is it a godless and uncaring or a merciful eye, pulling us from the carnage or skipping to the next?

This is a remarkable Austrian serial killer movie, that reminds me a little of "HENRY". A man is released from prison after ten years for killing an old woman, and they think he has been rehabilitated. WRONG!!! Immediately, he searches out a home that no one seems to be there, and breaks in through a window. This movie has very little dialogue, what we hear is his own narration through his psychotic thoughts. He has a plan, where he intends to kill whoever owns the home, because that's what he does. Very very creepy, and with a Klaus Schulze soundtrack that builds the tension very very nicely. When the Mother and Daughter finally arrive at their home, he wastes little time in literally scaring the ill Mother to death, and then eventually very brutally killing the pretty daughter and then having sex with her corpse. This is after he drowns the invalid Son in the bathtub. But he is angry that all this killing did not go according to his plan, so he decides what he needs to do, is gather up all the bodies, put them in the family's car trunk, and go on another killing spree, scarring the next victims with the corpses in the trunk. This is serious stuff folks, there is no fooling around with this movie, it actually made me tense with the mounting tension created by his mental narration, the amazing music, and following his manic actions he trying to carry out an insane plan. This is a psycho thriller that has few equals in the genre, and I simply was blown away by it. The actor playing the psychopath is amazingly convincing, and I have to admit, this movie had an impact on me, I was somewhat shaken by watching it. It's not that gory, it's just flat out disturbing as hell, and one I won't soon forget. It's one of the best of it's genre I have ever seen. Brutal as hell, and convincing as hell, and what a hell of a soundtrack. Magnificent movie, catch it if you can.

Angst is without a doubt one of the best serial killer flicks in the history of cinema. And some would say The Best. And I can tell you, it's damn close.Angst follows a serial killer who is released from prison after a 10 year incarceration. What takes place is shocking and original film-making. What this man does is just start up where he left off. It's basically just following around the killer and just getting to know him. Oh and his victims, but in a more or less personal way. Eesh.Angst excels in all facets. The acting by the main character, the serial killer, is flat out great, in an insane sort of way. He looks the part, and definitely acts the part. The scene when he's in the car is unforgettable. Throw in great cinematography, direction and writing, and the fact that this is a truly disturbing, realistic look into a serial killer's obsessive habits, it easily makes this one of the best serial killer movies of all time.