ma-cortes
Spanish ¨cult movie¨ with astonishing images and deliberately paced . This moving as well as strong story is an emotive recounting and an intense horror drama , including tragedy , deaths and bloody executions by hanging , stabbing and other means . After torturing and murdering his latest victim , a Nazi doctor named Klaus (Gunter Meisner) throws himself off a roof , all of it has been secretly witnessed by a little boy . Some years later, his suicide failed attempt , his wife Griselda (Marisa Paredes, Almodovar's ordinary) decides to contract a worker to care him . As Klaus is forced to be confined to an artifact contains an iron lung and to accept a mysterious boy called Angelo (David Sust) as his nurse under threat of blackmail . Meanwhile , Angelo befriends Klaus' daughter (Echevarria) , and the rare teenager possesses the Klaus's diary, which details his wartime experiments in concentration camps and his ulteriorly descent into pedophilia and killing . The picture is full of suspense , mystery , screechy bursts of violence and lots of blood and gore . As this terror as well as claustrophobic flick shown to the audience gets more and more violent . This slick horror feast is a triumph of style over movie logic . It's packed with overwhelming as well as upsetting images , excessive violence and grotesque killings . Here is treated some disturbing issues such as fetish for young boys , pedophilia , sodomy , eerie tortures and grisly killings . Good acting by Gunter Meisner as former Nazi doctor-turned-pedophile , paralyzed from the neck down and who subsequently feels guilt . Günter Meisner originally turned down the role , horrified by the story . According to Villaronga , Meisner called him a few weeks later to accept the part, arguing he couldn't stop thinking about it . Gunter was a character actor who worked continuously in movies due to his aristocratic style , making him ideal for typecasting in British and later American films as Nazis and other vile , despicable roles , what was ironic about his typecasting as a Nazi is that he stayed in a Nazi death camp during World War II . Although well-known for playing Hitler and various others warlike movies , Meisner was a fine actor who played several support roles , being specially known for his secondaries in ¨The Boys from Brazil¨ , ¨Night crossing¨, ¨Ace of Aces¨ , ¨Avalanche Express¨ and his character as Mr Slugworth in ¨Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory ¨ . Furthermore , disturbing acting by David Sust as a boy secretly witnessed the doctor's torture , displaying his ambition to follow in the older man's footsteps and finally unleashes his own criminal spree . Director/writer Agustí Villaronga said that the origin of the story came when he read about Giles De Rais (1404-1440), a devoutly religious follower of Joan of Arc who fought valiantly on her side and was later trialed and executed by the Catholic Church for heresy and sexual crimes committed against children . As Rais served as a commander in the Royal Army, distinguishing himself by displaying reckless bravery on the battlefield during the renewal of the Hundred Years War . He killed, or ordered to be killed , a great but uncertain number of children after he committed sodomy upon them . In fact , forty bodies were discovered in Machecoul , France , in 1437 . Gilles' body-servant Étienne Corrillaut , known as Poitou, was an accomplice in many of the crimes and testified that his master hung his victims with ropes from a hook . The victims were killed by decapitation, cutting of their throats, dismemberment, or breaking of their necks with a stick . Rais's prosecution would be on charges which included murder , sodomy, and heresy. The precise number of Gilles' victims is not known, as most of the bodies were burned or buried. The number of murders is generally placed between 80 and 200; a few have conjectured numbers upwards of 600 . The victims ranged in age from six to eighteen and included both sexes.Downbeat and frightening musical score by Javier Navarrete . Dark as well colorful cinematography by Jaume Peracaula . This motion picture titled ¨In a glass cage¨ or ¨Tras el Cristal¨ was compellingly directed by Agusti Villaronga . Agusti was born in 1953 in Majorca, Balearic Islands ; he uses to make films including genuine chills , suspense , mystery and dark atmospheres . His movies pack excellent creation of taut , thriller , emotions and rare atmospheres such as ¨Aro Tolbukhin¨ , ¨El mar¨ , ¨El Niño De la Luna¨ also starred by Gunter Meisner and especially ¨Black bread¨ or ¨Pan Negro¨ , or Pa Negre¨ , this was his greatest success , winning several Goyas .
ihearthorrorfilm
Good Lord! UNCOMFORTABLE!!! Without giving too much away, this film is about a Nazi doctor/child molester that tries to commit suicide, fails and ends up in a iron lung. A dude shows up to his house claiming to be a nurse there to take care of Klaus, the Nazi child molester. Because this film is over 2 decades old, there are some major slow parts. But, all the other scenes make up for the boring parts. I felt myself saying in my head, please don't go where I think this is going… Of course it went there and it was often worse than what I was expecting. With an ending that will stay with me for a while, this is definitely one to watch alone. I would also like to point out that this is more of a Horrific Drama, very Hitchcockian.Please like me on Facebook! We love getting suggestions and warnings on everything horror: http://www.facebook.com/pages/I-Heart-Horror/338327476286206
Michael Neumann
Discriminating viewers might be excused for wishing this disturbing Spanish feature weren't so well made, because then it could be dismissed as merely gratuitous exploitation. The story concerns an aging, exiled Nazi prison camp doctor confined in a mechanical lung while his male 'nurse' tortures them both by recreating, with a mounting sense of dread and claustrophobia, the atrocities his invalid patient once performed, slowly turning their villa into his own private death camp. The style of the film is not unlike an old-fashioned monster movie, but sensitive patrons should be strongly cautioned: it confronts us with depravity in much the same way as the disturbed young Angelo confronts the helpless doctor with the crimes of his past, putting the viewer in the uncomfortable position of being a willing participant in crimes against humanity.
oasis2000-1
A truly dark and disturbing movie that must be seen. A man with a dark and sordid past who committed crimes against young boys tries to commit suicide and fails, he is only kept alive by a machine called an iron lung and can't move from the neck down. His wife needs help looking after him as she also has a young daughter to look after and a male nurse applies for the job, despite misgivings from his wife he stays. the film contains some very disturbing moments but I believe everyone should watch this film, it is a true classic and will remain in your thoughts long after you have watched it, I will not say more as i don't want to ruin it for anyone except you owe it to yourself to watch it, and watch it with an open mind. Also if you do get to watch this movie then I recommend you watch El Mar, another brilliant movie well worth seeing.
