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Antibodies (2005)
Director Christian Alvert (Director of an upcoming horror film starring Renee Zellweger) gained festival popularity as well as a limited theatrical push with his second film “Antibodies”. Like “Saw”, “Suspect Zero” and many other serial killer horror films it has also been compared to “Seven” and “Silence of the Lambs” due to the police procedurals, religious nuances, the charismatic psychopathic killer and a chilling climax.
This film starts off with a bang… Berlin police arrive at the home of Gabriel Engel (Andre Hennike,“Downfall”) and the suspected killer begins blasting away with a shotgun. After taking out a few guys in blue while in the buff, he jumps out of a window naked and tries his best to get away at a snail pace. When the cops go to read him his rights he sarcastically says he’s innocent while laughing hysterically.
From the get go there is only one cop he would like to talk to and that is a local town constable Michael Martens who is a god fearing man, unfaithful husband and a father of a trouble making boy. Soon Michael gets wrapped up in a case that is much more dangerous and personal than he would like. This leads to plenty of scenes that resemble the masterful scenes between Jodie Foster’s Clarice and Anthony Hopkin’s Hannibal Lectar in “Silence of the Lambs”. From Gabriel and Michael’s first encounter Jonathan Demme’s film is given a nod. While not being totally a work of originality, there is great writing that made me forgive the simple predictability.
The acting of Andre Hennicke is pretty damned intense and sinister. The guy did a fantastic job creating a man who didn’t give a damn about human life and furthermore he came off as a credible manipulator. During the beginning of his time in jail he requests a red book and the services of Michael, who is the only sole he will talk to about his numberous crimes against 14 children. Soon his red book goes missing and there is some important information regarding Michael’s son Christan that Michael doesn’t have a clue about. This all leads up to a lot of tension building moments, choke outs and screaming matches.
Wotan Wilke Mohring does a great job and has a lot to work with because his character is dealing with it all. He has a pissed off father in law who knows he’s unfaithful, a penis flashing son with an animal abusing fetish, a loving wife he can’t remain loyal to and some seriously conflicting religious issues being further tampered with by the man he is interrogating.
All of these issues make the flawed character interesting to watch and not every question gets answered in this dark thriller with excellent pacing (even at a 128 minute running time). Christan Alvart lets his killer take the backseat like all of the classics and spends time with his unlikely hero Michael and his family.
The most original part about this movie was the fact that one of the victims, Lucia Flieder’s panties had two different traces of semen after lab work was conducted. This leads to more confusion for Michael and the big city cop helping him the case. Soon after a neighborhood meeting everyone is told to give DNA samples to the authorities. After certain people don’t comply this leads to Michael making more unchristian choices. It seems Gabriel is in total control especially after he gets smuggled in a drug that will kill him in 48 hours. So now time is running out and Michael is losing his mind and blaming innocent and not so innocent people around him. He is also become violently sexual and in one seed gives in to having sex with his wife instead of random women only to make her bleed.
Christian Alvart has made an all out good film with a fine cast of actors. The originality is out the window but the uninspired style of thriller had a lot of good ideas and strange revelations to keep the viewer hooked. The actor playing the kid killing loony Gabriel hit a home run. Andre Hennicke got nude, came off as revolting and delivered enough non literal psycho babble to make him a memorable on screen sociopath.
The subplot with Michael’s kid is an outstanding edition to this film that keeps the viewer at unease even when being on break from Gabriel. The cinematography by Hagen Bognaski had a professional look without going with the dirty style used in films like “Seven” and “Saw”.Dark Sky has picked up another winner with this film that is more about story then blood although the killer paints with his victim’s blood. The second disc in this 2-Disc Special Edition includes an “Evil is a Virus” featurette by writer/director Christian Alvart, Making of Antibodies, Deleted Scenes and outtakes. After seeing this I am hoping he delivers a similar toned film like this with “Case 39”. There was enough meat in the story to make this stand out amongst the many serial killer films in the 90’s and today’s Saw Franchise.
Rating - ***
-Russ Rutter
