Nekromantik: Jörg Buttgereit's Underground Cult Classic
Content warning: this article discusses a film about death and necrophilia. It contains no graphic description, but the film itself is for adults only.
Nekromantik holds a special place for me. It's a film I first watched a long time ago, and it was the very first film I ever made officially licensed merch for. Almost four decades after it was made, it's still one of the most notorious titles in underground horror.
What is Nekromantik?
Nekromantik (1987) is a West German horror film directed by Jörg Buttgereit and co-written with Franz Rodenkirchen. It was Buttgereit's first feature, after a run of short Super 8 films. The story follows a man who works cleaning up after fatal accidents, and whose fixation with death, shared with his partner, sends their life into a downward spiral.
Buttgereit has always described it as an underground film first and foremost. He has said the Super 8 look was part of that, putting it alongside the underground films of the Kuchar brothers (Electric Sheep), and that what he was doing was closer to underground filmmaking rooted in punk rock than to horror, at a time when Germany had no horror scene to speak of (Daily Grindhouse). He has also named John Waters among the biggest influences on the film (HorrorNews).
Censorship and release
Nekromantik was released in West Germany in 1988 without being submitted to the country's film rating board, and was shown only to adults. Buttgereit has said that keeping his films to midnight screenings helped them avoid censorship, because district attorneys didn't go to midnight screenings (Electric Sheep).
That didn't last forever. After the scandal around its sequel, Nekromantik 2 (1991), German authorities temporarily banned mail-order sales of the original, and the film has been banned or restricted in a number of other countries. In the UK, it was finally passed with an 18 certificate and released in 2014.
Why Nekromantik still matters
Critics have argued about it from the start. Berlin critics were generally positive, praising its taboo-breaking and its effects, while John Waters famously called it "the first ever erotic film for necrophiliacs". The 2014 UK release even came with a documentary, Morbid Fascination: The Nekromantik Legacy, about the film's impact on horror in the UK and abroad.
For me, it's one of the films that showed what underground horror could do. A lot of the extreme horror that came after it owes something to Nekromantik, whether the filmmakers say so or not.
My first officially licensed film
Nekromantik was the first officially licensed piece I ever made. I'd watched the film a long time before Unusual Horror existed, and being able to make official merch for it, with Jörg Buttgereit himself, was where everything started.
The official Nekromantik range
My Nekromantik range was made with Jörg Buttgereit, with artwork by Neurotic Art:
See the range in the Nekromantik collection, browse all the extreme horror merch, or read An Introduction to Extreme Horror Films.
Nekromantik FAQs
Who directed Nekromantik?
Jörg Buttgereit, who co-wrote it with Franz Rodenkirchen. It was his first feature film.
Is Nekromantik banned in the UK?
No. It was passed with an 18 certificate and released in the UK in 2014.
Is there a Nekromantik 2?
Yes. Buttgereit followed it with Nekromantik 2 in 1991.
Is your Nekromantik merch official?
Yes. My Nekromantik range is officially licensed and was made with Jörg Buttgereit.