Der Menschenfresser

A middle aged female crime novel writer called Rosa meets a middle aged man called Otto in a lonely cabin of a empty midnight express. As the train (an old steam engine of the Deutsche Reichsbahn!) runs through the German countryside, the couple starts a conversation, and Otto tells Rosa that he is a cannibal. While rosa thinks about her new crime story about a female detective investigating the missing of several people in a lonely village, she realizes that her mysterious companion is really a passionate man eater. The situation becomes wicked, as Otto threatens her to eat her alive as soon as she falls asleep...

What could have been an American b-movie horror film became an odd and surreal theatre play within a train under the direction of Alexander Otto Jahrreiss. The director avoids standards thrills and story lines, but reduces the horror situation on the two actors (brilliantly played by Irene Kugler and Helmut Lorin), accompanied by surreal flashbacks, dream sequences and a hallucination like cannibal dinner and slaughterhouse subplot that could have been taken from The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

The film focuses on the silent psycho duel between the two actors, and the plot with its many sexual sub tones becomes weirder and more twisted until the very bloody ending. Especially Irene Kugler's transformation from a boring looking wallflower to a naked, sexy, killing slaughterhouse Vampirella is fascinating and outstanding. A really unusual German art house movie from 1993 apart from all movie trends and genres that is a real sleeper and doesn't seem too unreal after the shocking gay cannibal slayings of German man eater Armin Meiwes in 2003.

This movie is an extraordinary piece of German film. Originally released for TV, it has never reached the potential it had. The main actors are astonishing. It is absolutely one of my favourite German movies about (serial) killers. Too bad probably no person ever will watch it, because it is rarely available.