YMMV / The Damned (1969)

• Ending Fatigue: After its central set piece, the Night of the Long Knives massacre, the movie just sort of drifts along for another 45 minutes.
• Moral Event Horizon: Pretty much every character does at some point:
  • Frederick right away, by murdering Joachim (though unlike his costars, shows some remorse for his actions later on).
  • Konstantin blackmailing Martin into financing the SA.
  • Martin seems predisposed to this. He'd be a Jerkass Woobie with a perfect Freudian Excuse if he didn't obliterate the moral event horizon at every opportunity. He molests a young girl early in the film, drives another to suicide through his attentions then manages to top himself by raping his mother. Becoming a card-carrying SS officer is one of the nicer things he does in the course of the film.
  • Sophie's brutal Kick the Dog speech towards Elizabeth, who's trying to flee Germany and join her husband in exile. Not that she's been nice up to that point, mind you, but she goes from merely unpleasant to horrible.
• Retroactive Recognition:
  • Troma regular Jessica Dublin makes her film debut as Sophie's personal nurse.
  • Lucio Fulci favorite Al Cliver plays one of the SA Brownshirts in the orgy sequence.
• Too Bleak, Stopped Caring: One common criticism of the movie is that every major character is amoral and depraved if not outright psychopathic, making it hard to sympathize with anyone. The only exception is Elizabeth, who's pretty much a textbook Woobie and doesn't even enjoy the dignity of an onscreen death.
• The Woobie: Lisa Keller, the little Jewish girl Martin molests, who already suffers verbal and physical abuse at home from her mother. In her last scene (save for a quick shot of her legs), she hangs herself to get away from him.

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