Angst (German for "Fear") is a 1983 Austrian horror film directed by Gerald Kargl, co-written by him and cinematographer/editor Zbigniew Rybczyński, and starring Erwin Leder.
The plot concerns an unnamed psychopathic serial killer (Leder) recently released from prison, who starts committing more murders in the hopes that it will get him incarcerated again, driven by a desire to see the fear in the eyes of his victims.
Though relatively obscure, and notably banned all over Europe for its violent content, the film has been highly acclaimed for its unconventional camerawork, intense acting performances, and score by Klaus Schulze, a portion of which was later re-used in Michael Mann's 1986 film Manhunter.
Gaspar Noé has cited the film as a major influence on his directorial style.
This film includes examples of the following tropes:
- Arc Words:
- "It really excited me."
- "It was the perfect plan."
- Ax-Crazy: The unnamed serial killer is a bit off his rocker, to say the least.
- Bad People Abuse Animals: The killer narrates to the audience about how he tortured animals in his youth.
- Bittersweet Ending: The killer gets caught immediately, but he's happy because it gave him the attention for his killings he desired, and three people are still dead. On the bright side, it's unlikely he'll be released from prison again, the dog survived, and other potential victims have been spared.
- Blood Lust: The killer seems to have a fondness for blood, as he narrates a time he slashed a pig's throat to watch the blood gush out, and later when murdering the young woman drinks her blood.
- Calling Your Attacks: "I will shoot now."
- Deer in the Headlights: When the young woman is being attacked and tied up by the killer, her elderly mother stands there watching instead of trying to intervene, escape, or try to protect her infirm son.
- Dutch Angle: Used frequently along with Jitter Cam to illustrate the killer's disturbed state of mind.
- Euroshlock: A quintessential example, featuring all sorts of graphic mayhem and a relentlessly downbeat tone.
- Establishing Character Moment: The opening scene of the movie features our main character walking down a street, disoriented, then knocking on a random door and shooting to death the old woman that answers.
- Evidence Dungeon: Invoked. The killer stuffs the corpses of his murder victims in the trunk of their car before taking off in it, planning to show the corpses to his future victims before stuffing them in too, all as part of a scare tactic. When he's about to be arrested for his involvement in an unrelated car accident, he has the police open the trunk in full view of multiple bystanders, so he can revel in their fear and disgust.
- Extremely Short Timespan: The introductory sequence and subsequent Time Skip aside, the entire film takes place over a day.
- Finagle's Law: Every time the killer thinks up a "perfect" plan, it fails spectacularly. His first plan to strangle a taxi driver to death goes badly awry when she notices how suspicious he's acting and he's forced to flee. His later plan to slowly torture a family to death fails when the elderly mother dies of a preexisting condition before he can murder her, and the young woman's attempts to get away forces him to stab her to death. His final and most ambitious plan to commit a mass murder fails before it begins when he gets into a minor car accident in front of half a dozen witnesses, and the police track him down to a nearby coffee shop when he stops to have breakfast.
- For the Evulz: The killer admits many times that he takes pleasure in killing, to the point where he derives sexual satisfaction from it.
- Freudian Excuse: The killer goes into detail about his abusive upbringing in the form of periodic narration.
- Gonk: The killer has an extremely strange and gaunt facial structure that makes him appear ghoulish as a result of his expressions.
- Info Dump: After the opening scene where the killer murders an elderly woman, the narration of his subsequent trial goes into detail about his messed up home life and previous criminal activities. The killer himself periodically tells the viewer additional details about his life, such as getting kicked out of a convent for killing animals.
- My God, What Have I Done?: As he drives to the gas station and notices the pictures of the family in the glove compartment, the killer considers the possibility of feeling remorse for his crimes. It doesn't last, as someone finds the bodies in his trunk, and he admits he's proud of spreading fear.
- One-Book Author: The only feature-length production by Gerald Kargl, whose body of work has mainly been in short films, documentaries, and advertising.
- Pet the Dog: Downplayed. The killer spares the family's dachshund and even allows it to stay in the car with him, but otherwise just completely disregards it, and if anything, was only taking it like a trophy.
- Rape as Backstory: The killer mentions his first "girlfriend" was an adult woman (he states she was old enough to be his mother) who initiated a sexual relationship with him when he was only 14 that included some elements of extreme sexual violence.
- Sadist: As the killer himself repeatedly notes and as the closing narration of his trial officially diagnoses him as.
- The Sociopath: The unnamed killer is practically a textbook example of a low-functioning psychopath. He has zero remorse or guilt for any of his crimes, and indeed gains pleasure from the murders he commits. He shows no control of his impulses, selecting victims on random whims and making up poorly thought-out plans on the fly. His functioning is so poor that, unlike other examples of criminal psychopaths, he can't present himself as even remotely normal and constantly makes others uneasy around him.
- Stupid Evil: The unnamed serial killer is profoundly incompetent, thinking out his plans in an extremely incompetent fashion and gets caught within a day of his spree.
- The Unfavorite: The killer claims he was the least loved child by his family, with his sister receiving far more kindness and warmth.
- Villain Ball: The killer's incredibly impulsive nature, combined with an incessant need to inflict fear and pain on his victims, causes him to fail one of his murder attempts and nearly bungle his later triple homicide. His total inability to plan out his actions and total lack of knowledge about proper human interaction also directly causes him to get arrested before he can attempt a mass murder at a coffee shop.
- Villain Protagonist: The unnamed killer played by Erwin Leder.
- Very Loosely Based on a True Story: The story is loosely based on that of real-life serial killer Werner Kniesek
. In addition to most of the characters, including the killer himself, going unnamed, the time frames are compressed significantly to fit the film's runtime. In reality, Kniesek tortured his victims over periods of seven to eleven hours before finally murdering them. Additionally, Kniesek had multiple arrests before his eventual life sentence, whereas his film counterpart is only released once before being given a life sentence following the events of the film. - Vomit Indiscretion Shot: The killer vomits after drinking the blood of one of his victims.
