The Clumsiness of the Killer

Just because a guy's a serial killer, doesn't mean he's super strong or brilliant. One of the few movies that illustrates this fact is 1983's Angst, the story of a killer just released from prison who immediately starts seeking out new victims. The point of the film is well taken but as an experience in itself it is a little dull.

Erwin Leder's performance as the unnamed killer is admirably unrestrained and effective. Along with the framing and editing, his wide, darting eyes and jittery movements help create a sense of being in his head.

He breaks into a house and finds a family--an elderly woman (Edith Rosset) and her grown daughter (Silvia Ryder) and son (Rudolf Gotz). The son has a severe mental impairment of some kind and is confined to a wheelchair. As the killer sets about his plan to murder them all, we hear in voiceover how he maps his relationships with his own mother and sister onto them. As the situation changes, his assignment of roles to them shifts.

He has grand ambitions about a number of kills but all those he manages to perpetrate in the film seem due to luck and a strange, inexplicable, persistent lethargy on the part of the family. The daughter is pretty and oddly inexpressive and barely struggles against what seems a pretty flimsy job of taping her to a door. I think director Gerald Kargl may have made a deliberate effort to dehumanise the victims in order to put us more in the killer's perspective. I can kind of respect the idea but ultimately it leads to a less interesting film, especially compared to others that successfully give us the perspectives of both killer and victim, like Psycho or even When a Stranger Calls.

Angst is available on The Criterion Channel.

Twitter Sonnet #1478

Connexions slow again across the net.
Electric plants were wanting space and meat.
Resounding brass proposed a music bet.
The giant legs obscure the tiny feet.
A fax machine digests the ancient bill.
A troub'ling storm rewards the watching mouse.
We carried hearts beneath the sandy hill.
The girl could barely fit the rabbit's house.
Arrangements differ 'cross the ocean deck.
We play for cards to make another game.
A match revealed a deep and empty wreck.
The shaking sand condensed and met the same.
Forgetting days, the child aged in years.
A kitten's sleep persists for deafened ears.