The Deathmaker (1995)

I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.

Great movie! If you want to be entertained and have a few good laughs, see this movie. The music is also very good,

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

Would a different translation have made it chillier or scarier? Are the subtitles too compact to convey the nuances of the original language? Does it even matter? You may have heard that great actors can make reading a phone book exciting. Well, this is an opportunity to judge for yourself. If this isn't about homosexuality, murder, dismemberment, psychopaths, insanity, deviant psychology, then it is about acting - acting helped along with lots of dialog, So, enjoy the acting or muse about how titillating the dialog actually is.For English speakers, "Twelve Angry Men" might be a better choice. There's a bit more interaction, and you can judge if the acting is consistent with the dialog. You don't have to wonder if you're missing something.I would recommend Andy Warhol's "Empire" to those who like this film.

"Deathmaker" is an outstanding movie. It's psychologically intense and very well played, BUT...The major problem of this feature is that the director chose the wrong medium for his project. The story told in "Deathmaker" would fit better into a (classical) theater. The whole setting is placed in one room only, there are less than a dozen actors needed and no (!) optical and only few sound effects are used. Nothing indicates that this story needs all the technical possibilities of cinematography. So this movie is - in my eyes - nothing more than a theater play filmed for distribution of the piece beyond theaters The story itself is quiet slow - many will find it boring or too long. There is nearly no action at all in it. Majorly three people sitting on chairs in a room together and talking. If you can sympathize with this kind of storytelling, then you should watch this movie. Else I can not recommend it.

This is a quite spartan film. The only location is a sparse-funitured room, no special-effects, no score, just a few actors. - But what for actors! Götz George is supposed to be one of the best German actors, and after this movie the viewer knows why. Here he really shows what he is able to. I rarely (never?) saw such an intense, brilliant and convincing performance before. The sparse environment has the effect that the viewer can concentrate himself on the acting - and and this is what makes this film worth seeing. But it's not only Götz George. The other actors (esp. Jürgen Hentsch as the psychiatrist and Pierre Franckh as the stenographer) are performing impressive and convincing. They are a well contrast and counterpart for George alias Haarmann. This prevents this movie from becoming a Götz-George-One-Man-Show. I rated this with 8 because I think. a film for a 9 or even 10 should make more use of the diverse capabilities of the medium. After all a good film, but an absolute excellent play.

this film can be enjoyed, but it's nothing too special. much-praised acting is no better nor worse than one would expect from professional performers. as for direction, maybe i missed it... there didn't seem to be any at all. this is by no means a film to be watched in the cinema. on tv, on a snowy winter evening, okay. better still, watch it performed onstage in a small, intimate theatre, where it belongs... the dearth of good german movies is highlighted by the fact that this very unexceptional effort garnered so much attention and praise in that country, which produces so much, but so little of note. keen to see "manila," though what i've heard thus far is anything but encouraging...