YMMV / The Burning Moon

• Awesome Music: Although the quality of the film itself is debatable, the main theme, composed by Albert G. Striedl, is actually pretty awesome.
• Jerkass Woobie:
  • Cliff Parker is a vicious, unrepentant Serial Killer with obliviously misogynistic tendencies. However, he's clearly not entirely there mentally, and he was severely traumatized by watching his grandfather murder his entire family in front of him.
  • Peter as well, by the end, arguably. Once he's fully absorbed the realization that he just killed his sister, he's clearly ridden with guilt.
• Moral Event Horizon: All the antagonists crossed it at one point:
  • Cliff murders Julia's entire family and a friend of hers.
  • Pfarrer Ralf was arguably past it way before the beginning of "The Purity", but raping and then killing a woman at the very start definitely placed him beyond any chance of redemption.
  • Frank kills Justuz.
  • Peter — in addition to reading her those terrible stories AND beating up his parents — stabbed his sister to death.
• Nausea Fuel: A lot of it. What would you expect from Olaf Ittenbach? Most notably, Cliff shoving an eyeball down Julia's throat, which we get to see her swallow, and Frank's torture in Hell, where his teeth are ground to dust by a drill, and then he's ripped in half down the middle from the crotch. And for that matter, the entirety of the 8-minute plus Hell sequence is vile beyond belief, including — but certainly not limited to — some lovely visuals such as cannibalism; a man stepping on the insides of an eviscerated torso; and a man with crutches and a leg barely dangling by a tendon. Oh yeah, and the cover art for the DVD release features what's quite possibly the grossest collage ever made. Obviously NSFW.◊
• Nightmare Fuel: As simple as it is, the entirety of the Hell scene has a very unnatural and disturbing feel to it. If anything, the simplicity just makes it worse. Not helping this fact is the low VHS quality of the film that makes the movie as a whole like something out of a terrible nightmare.
• Special Effects Failure: Some of the corpses, most notably the man with a machete through his head, are very obviously dummies.
• Spiritual Licensee: It can be considered Anal Cunt: The Movie. It's got a distinct Stylistic Suck, the protagonist is a Jerkass drug addict of the highest order whose Kick the Dog antics (including beating up his parents, then shooting up heroin before traumatizing his little sister with a pair of ultra-gory stories) are so over-the-top that they step outside the realm of offensiveness into Crosses the Line Twice.
• Tear Jerker:
  • Yes, of all movies! Peter stabs his little sister and then kills himself whilst crying. Cue a lingering shot of a photograph of Peter's sister as the credits roll. And one can only imagine how the parents will react when they get home.
  • The murder of Justuz, the village idiot accused of murder. His death scene may not be the goriest in the movie, but with the music in the background, it's fucking depressing.
• Too Bleak, Stopped Caring: There aren't many likable characters, and almost all the good guys are either victims or Too Dumb to Live (like Julia). Not helping is that the movie grows increasingly grim as it goes on, all culminating in a shockingly upsetting ending.
• Visual Effects of Awesome: One thing that cannot be denied is that, for the most part, the gore effects are pretty impressive for a No Budget production, with Frank's torture and mutilation in Hell especially standing out. Given that director Olaf Ittenbach has a background in the field of visual effects, this is not entirely surprising.
• The Woobie: Justuz. He's unfairly accused of murder by the villagers, the only guy who will stand up for him is the murderer himself, and finally he gets killed and sent to hell... probably.

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