Der Nachtmahr review By Elke Eijsink
Words on the screen appear: ‘This movie has to be played very loud’, followed by an indeed heavy soundtrack with techno and electronic beats. This is how the movie ‘Der Nachmahr’ (transl. the Nightmare) starts. Disturbing and confusing are the words that would describe this German psychological-techno horror movie, starring Carolyn Genzkow as Tina, a 16 year old who has everything a girl her age wants. After a party, she begins to experience horrible nightmares in which she is haunted by a disturbing creature.
Late nights, drugs and secret raves are included in a normal week for Tina and her friends in the Berlin party scene. The action starts off at a party, where Tina passes out assuming that it was just the effect of taking to many drugs and drinking too much alcohol. During the time she was passed out, she had a vision that she saw a strange creature and was hit by a car. When she was conscious again, she realized that it was not real. From that moment on, a mysterious creature begins haunting in not only her dreams at night, but also at daytime at home, in school and at parties with her friends.
Her parents have no idea how to help her and are forced to get her psychiatric help. Tina tries really hard to make the people around her see the creature but when that does not work, she is getting even more confused and frustrated. Her teachers, parents and even the psychologist do not understand what is happening to her and what she is seeing, which makes them want to put her in a mental hospital. Before this could actually happen, Tina realizes that the creature represents her own fears and feelings. Therefore she tries to accept the creature and be friends with it, in order to find peace. In the meantime, her family and friends still think that the drugs and alcohol have created her delusions. You can watch the trailer of ‘Der Nachtmahr’ here.
– Carolyn Genzkow as Tina
Carolyn Genzkow delivers an exceptional performance as a young party girl who just as all other girls of that age is insecure about herself, boys and friends. She perfectly expresses her mood and feelings in her face expressions while she tries to receive acceptance from her friends and the boy she is in love with. Her mood and feelings are strongly expressed in the music during the movie. When she is partying, the music is really loud and quite disturbing as well, which describes her feeling during that moment.
‘Der Nachtmahr’ is a very well executed movie by director Akiz with strange plot twists which keeps the audience on the edge of their seat but also confuses and disturbs them. The filming techniques have a scary touch. They use alternating back an front shots with makes it a bit scary since the angles are changing fast. Overall the movie is not as scary as predicted, since the sounds make you scared instead of the thing that would suppose to scare the audience, the disturbing creature. But the movie is definitely worth watching during the London Film Festival.
You can watch Der Nachtmahr at BFI Southbank, NFT3 Thursday 08 October 2015 15:45 and at Hackney Picturehouse, Screen 1, Saturday 10 October 2015 21:00
Book your tickets here.
