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.

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 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.

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.