In Schramm – Into the Mind of a Serial Killer, Jörg Buttgereit pursues the aesthetics and themes of his ‘necromantic’ feature films and plays an absurdist game with cheap porn and horror genres. The Schramm of the title is the lust murderer Lothar Schramm, in everyday life a taxi driver who is not suspected of involvement. The woman next door thinks he is a nice respectable man. The film shows at length the bloodthirsty way he murders his last victims, two Jehovah’s Witnesses who ring his doorbell. He then uses their bodies for a burlesque necrophilic spectacle of lust.
Schramm is later found dead beside his victims. The neighbours had started to complain about the stench of rotting flesh. The man who became known as the ‘lipstick killer’ turned out to have died a lonely and accidental death in a fall.
Film details
Productieland
Germany
Jaar
1993
Festivaleditie
IFFR 1994
Lengte
66'
Medium/Formaat
16mm
Taal
German
Première status
International premiere
Director
Jörg Buttgereit
Producer
Manfred Jelinski
Screenplay
Jörg Buttgereit, Franz Rodenkirchen
Cinematography
Manfred Jelinski
Editing
Jörg Buttgereit, Manfred Jelinski, Franz Rodenkirchen
Principal cast
Florian Körner von Gustorf, Xaver Schwarzenberger, Michael Brynntrup, Monika M., Micha Brendel, Carolina Harnisch, Gerd Horvath