88.000

Creepy and abstruse.

The visual style is creepy by itself, but when you realize that every dutch angle and flash frame is a path into the Cremator's distressed, hollow soul, the nightmare becomes something far more profound. What makes this exceed the typical horror/slasher film is that Karl is not precisely evil when the film opens: What was once hypocritical self-reflection (who knows a humble bourgeoisie?) and pompous romanticism mutates into mad, homicidal hubris. And we're with him all the way.

best horror movie ever

It's all about atmosphere, with the camerawork and soundtrack combining to give a hallucinatory and creepy sense of doom to the whole film, even while the opening half is pretty straightforward. I do think the ending would have had a greater impact if the opening had been more subdued but I still enjoyed it an awful lot.

Hrusínský's performance was incredibly haunting. Herz's film is a true gem of the "Chech New Wave".

adorable!!!

Shows several levels of disturbing material without overdoing any particular aspect. However, it feels empty since we are given no reason to care about any of the characters.

Best czech movie ever.

Intellectual horror genre bu olsa gerek. Zamanin mekanin aklin irzina gecip bi de hepsini komediyle ortuyor. Cok cok garip.

11 Eylul 2011 & zamaninin cok otesinde bir tarz ile cekilmis, gorsel olarak cok basarili bir film. kesinlikle rahatsiz edici. filmin en buyuk rahatsiz ediciligi ise basrolun mukemmel oyunculugu. hasta bir ruh, hasta bir fikir bu kadar urkutucu ve ozgun anlatilamazdi.

This movie was pretty good, which is saying a lot since I rarely see movies that are older than I am. While watching this movie, I found myself sucked in by the main character. Throughout the whole movie he seemed to praise about how much of a family man he was, and how he had values and morals. This character alone makes the movie that much interesting. He made me hate him so much by how he did things, yet made me admire him by how he was able to control people.

Stylistically it's spectacular. The visual aesthetic is meticulously calculated to get across a creepy feeling. How to explain what I found distasteful about the subject matter? A death-obsessed cremator named Kopfrkingl, lured in by the Nazis to do their bidding. How predictable, how convenient. The morbid Kopfrkingl and his crematorium is kiddy stuff compared to the daily industrialized killing and cremation facilitated by the society around him. Is he Juraj Herz's inhuman-seeming scapegoat?

An absolutely amazing psychological horror film featuring a brilliantly morbid performance by Rudolf Hrusínský. The cinematography is astounding and succeeds in creating an incredibly eerie atmosphere without ever descending to the clichéd techniques of your standard horror film.

Props for the cinematography and of course the main character. Nearing the end, the movie starts to run dry. Not for anyone who can't stand a depressing film.

An intriguingly different kind of movie, even if it doesn't really work. The black humor wears its smirk and its quirk too openly, and the symbolism and metaphors are far too prominent. Also, one inevitably gets tired of the main character. Still, it's such an original take on a subject matter that's otherwise been done to death, so it deserves a few points for that.