Ruptured Double Review: Blutnacht - Die Rache des Dämon & Blutnacht 2 – Die Ruckkehr Des Damon

Before I start this double review I would like to point out that I did not watch either of these films with any kind of dubbing or subtitles to assist me, therefor I had absolutely no idea who anybody was or what their motivations were. I had to watch these films in their native language because no English language friendly editions exist. So, with that said I shall now try and explain the “plot” of the first film, Blutnacht - Die Rache des Dämon (Blutnacht – Revenge of the Demon). The film follows a group of friends who meet up in order to go to a party, one of the group finds his girlfriend cheating on him with his friend and storms off into the countryside with rage. He is rather hilariously killed in a hit-and-run car accident and then re-animated by some kind of demonic force, I think. After being brought back from the dead the enraged young man proceeds to stalk through the countryside hunting down and killing anyone who gets in his way. He also seems to be followed by a white faced, black robed figure who gives him weapons to use on the poor unfortunate victims and puts black sheets over them when their dead. This bizarre death like character is very funny, every time he appears on screen, without warning the entrance music for the WWE start the Undertaker begins to play, and then cuts out suddenly.

This film is a complete mess. It was shot on a VHS camera that judging by the picture quality looks like it’s been used to bang in nails, and that sounds like it was stored underwater. I not only struggled to understand what the characters were saying, but I struggled to see where the fuck they were! This film was shot almost entirely at night, with apparently nothing more than a jar of glow fly’s to provide light, because I couldn’t see a damn thing. The film does deliver on the cheap nasty gore and splatter, the only problem is that I couldn’t see it. Frankly, this is more of an eye test than it is a film, because you spend most of the time squinting like a stoner version of Mr Magoo. This film is a total cock up on pretty much all fronts, and is woefully unoriginal, although it’s terribleness is often funny it isn’t enough to save it from being very dull. 

The sequel to this mess was also directed by Jochen Stephan and was made in the same year as the first one (2002), but thankfully it is nothing like its predecessor.

Blutnacht 2 – Die Ruckkehr Des Damon (Blood Night 2 – Return of the Demon) has a similar plot to the first Blood Night film. In this film a gore hungry demon is brought to life by a satanic ritual deep in the woods by Cradle of Filth fans. He of course begins to wander around mangling and mutilating as he goes, and eventually bumps into a very annoying group of idiots whose car has broken down on a nearby dirt road. This rather predictably leads to a great deal of splatter and bloody goodness. 

The difference between this film and the first film is that not only is the filming done with a decent digital camera that combined with actual lighting allows the audience to see what the hell is going on, but it is just far more original and far more enjoyable. Firstly, the gore in this one is insane, it ranges from chainsaw dismemberment to a guy getting chopped in half with a samurai sword while receiving a very fake looking blowjob. This film feels like an apology for how poor the first film was, as it delivers everything the first one should of, and a hell of a lot more. And by more, I mean necrophilia, death by explosive diarrhoea and a girls entrails being pulled out of her stench trench while Slayer plays in the background (although Cannibal Corpse would have been more appropriate). 

The gore scenes in this film reminded me very much of the kind we saw in Todd Sheet’s Zombie Bloodbath, and Andreas Schnaas’s Zombie '90: Extreme Pestilence that seem to go on for hours. This film does have some of the usual no-budget cinema problems, such as very poor acting, shoddy editing (which is nowhere near as bad as the editing in the first film) and some pointless drawn-out scenes that add nothing but minutes to the runtime. However this film is so much fun I am willing to overlook those issues and enjoy it for what it is, a good old fashioned German splatter fest with no taste and a lot of imagination. Blutnacht 2 gets 7/10 from me, check it out and just avoid the first film.