Ulli Lommel is best known to horror fans as the director of schlocky '80s video nasty' The Boogey Man' and its unbelievably bad sequel, Revenge of the Bogeyman.
While far from gory, this earlier film from Lommel manages to be far more disturbing than either Boogey Man movie: produced by Rainer Werner Fassbinder, The Tenderness of the Wolves is based on real-life serial killer Fritz Haarmann, a predatory, homosexual criminal turned police informant who is believed to have killed between 50 and 70 boys and young men before finally being apprehended by the police and sentenced to death.
Kurt Raab's realistic portrayal of this deeply disturbed individual makes for uncomfortable viewing, especially if you're not keen on German 'sausage' (and by 'sausage', I mean male genitalia). And talking of meat products, Fritz was rumoured to have disposed of some of his victims' flesh by selling it on the black market as pork.
Compared to his later work, The Tenderness of the Wolves is stylishly shot and, male nudity aside, surprisingly restrained, the director opting to suggest the gruesome nature of Fritz's crimes rather than show it in gory detail. For some, this approach will prove frustratingly dull, but there's always Marion Dora's 2006 film Cannibal (based on real-life cannibal Armin Meiwes) if you're hankering after a more graphic account of a German nut-job*.
*Lommel also made a film inspired by Meiwes - Diary of a Cannibal (2007) - but I haven't seen that yet. The general consensus seems to be that it's not great.
While far from gory, this earlier film from Lommel manages to be far more disturbing than either Boogey Man movie: produced by Rainer Werner Fassbinder, The Tenderness of the Wolves is based on real-life serial killer Fritz Haarmann, a predatory, homosexual criminal turned police informant who is believed to have killed between 50 and 70 boys and young men before finally being apprehended by the police and sentenced to death.
Kurt Raab's realistic portrayal of this deeply disturbed individual makes for uncomfortable viewing, especially if you're not keen on German 'sausage' (and by 'sausage', I mean male genitalia). And talking of meat products, Fritz was rumoured to have disposed of some of his victims' flesh by selling it on the black market as pork.
Compared to his later work, The Tenderness of the Wolves is stylishly shot and, male nudity aside, surprisingly restrained, the director opting to suggest the gruesome nature of Fritz's crimes rather than show it in gory detail. For some, this approach will prove frustratingly dull, but there's always Marion Dora's 2006 film Cannibal (based on real-life cannibal Armin Meiwes) if you're hankering after a more graphic account of a German nut-job*.
*Lommel also made a film inspired by Meiwes - Diary of a Cannibal (2007) - but I haven't seen that yet. The general consensus seems to be that it's not great.