Fleisch, also known as Spare Parts, is a 1979 West German made-for-television medical thriller/road movie directed by Rainer Erler and starring Jutta Speidel, Herbert Herrmann, and Wolf Roth.
A newly married couple, Michael and Monika (Herrmann and Speidel), are spending their honeymoon in the southwestern United States. Suddenly, the unbelievable happens: Michael is kidnapped and assaulted by paramedics in an ambulance. Monika escapes at the last minute, and is picked up by truck driver Bill (Roth). Together they embark on the search for the kidnapped husband, and encounter a dangerous and perfectly organized syndicate that supplies the world's wealthy customers with organs stolen from young, healthy people.
Remade in 2007, with Sebastian Ströbel and Theresa Scholze in the leading roles.
The original film provides examples of:
- Big Bad: Dr. Jackson, head of the organ smuggling ring.
- The Big Rotten Apple: The climax takes place in New York City, where Dr. Jackson's vehicle is chased through a particularly dilapidated-looking part of town before finally being run off a bridge.
- Deadly Euphemism: "We bring meat for Dr. Jackson."
- Death by Ambulance: The organleggers use an old Dodge ambulance to kidnap their victims and steal their organs.
- Double-Meaning Title: The German title can translate as either "meat" or "flesh."
- Every Car Is a Pinto: Averted; when Dr. Jackson's vehicle falls off a bridge in the finale, it doesn't go up like a tinderbox but simply smashes onto the street below.
- Fanservice: During the lovemaking scene in the hotel, we are treated to some very nice shots of Michael and Monika's nude bodies (but mostly Monika's).
- Fan Disservice:
- It's kind of hard to appreciate seeing a beautiful twenty-something womannote clad in only her underwear when she's running for her life from armed organ traffickers.
- Later in the film, we see a rather unattractive man stripped down to his underwear by the truckers.
- Hell Hotel: The organ traffickers use the local fleabag hotel to capture their victims.
- Jack Bauer Interrogation Technique: After the truckers manage to corner the organleggers' van, one of the truckers strips the van's driver down to his underwear and places him in a refrigerated meat trailer in order to get him to reveal the smuggling ring's base of operations.
- Novelization: There exists a novelized form of the film, written by the director himself.
- One-Word Title: Fleisch.
- Organ Theft: The main plot revolves around people being kidnapped, drugged, and having their organs sold to the highest bidder.
- Road Trip Plot: Much of the film has Bill and Monika travelling across the highways of the American southwest in order to rescue the latter's kidnapped husband.
- Translation Convention: In full effect. Watching characters who are supposed to be Americans speaking German is a little disconcerting.
- Worst Wedding Ever: What is supposed to be the happiest day of Michael and Monika's lives quickly turns into a nightmare when the organ traffickers show up and kidnap the former.
The remake provides examples of:
- Book Ends: The remake ends with a scene of the same woman who set the tourists up for the kidnapping and Organ Theft selling another cheap vacation to another pair of tourists.
- Names to Run Away from Really Fast: Here, the Big Bad is Dr. Geyer (one letter away from Geier, the German word for "Vulture"), with Dr. Jackson being Forced into Evil instead.
- Setting Update: Whereas the original film was set in America, the remake is set in South Africa.
