- Year
- 1987
- Country
- West Germany
- Runtime
- 71 min
- Director
- Jörg Buttgereit
- Updated
- 10 Aug 2026
- Obscurity
- known (25/100)
- Banned in
- West Germany · UK · Australia · Norway · Finland · New Zealand · Singapore · Iceland
Nekromantik
Seized in Munich days after release, refused a BBFC certificate for 27 years, and banned in Australia, Norway, Finland, New Zealand, Singapore and Iceland.
German, banned widely, and much sadder than its reputation suggests.
German, banned widely, and much sadder than its notoriety suggests. A street-cleaner who collects body parts and his girlfriend bring a corpse home, and the film uses the ultimate taboo to tell a melancholy story about loneliness and loss. When she leaves him, his unravelling is almost poignant.
Jorg Buttgereit shoots it as grim art film rather than gross-out, and it is far more interested in alienation than in shock, though the shocks are real. It is not enjoyable and does not try to be.
Transgressive cinema with an actual broken heart underneath.
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Written about
- Banned, cut and confiscated
A Fulci print flown out of the country, an Australian rating that just means no, and a German court that filed The Evil Dead under criminal violence. Three states, three machines for making a film disappear.
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