Nekromantik

Nekromantik (stylized as NEKRomantik) is a 1987 West German erotic exploitation horror film co-written and directed by Jörg Buttgereit. Frequently banned in several countries, it has gained a cult following for its transgressive subject matter—including necrophilia—and audacious imagery.

The plot follows Robert Schmadtke, a troubled young man who cleans up public spaces after fatal accidents, a job that lets him indulge his necrophilia fetishes alongside his wife Betty. Their apartment is decorated with centerfolds, pictures of famed killers, and jars of human parts preserved in formaldehyde. When Robert secretly brings home a heavily decayed corpse from a lake, he presents it to Betty as a gift. They cut off a broom handle, stick it onto the corpse’s crotch, put a condom over it, and Betty commits necrophilia with the body. The next day, Robert is fired for tardiness and the smell from his locker. Betty angrily leaves, taking the corpse with her. Robert then kills their pet cat, bathes with its entrails, drinks whiskey, takes pills, and dreams of being a partially decayed corpse playing with a severed head. After waking, he hires a gigolette and takes her to a cemetery, but fails to perform sexually. When she mocks him, he strangles her, has sex with her corpse, and later decapitates an old gravedigger who discovers them. He returns home and commits suicide by stabbing himself in the stomach while ejaculating. Some time later, an unseen figure in high heels digs up his grave.

The cast includes Bernd Daktari Lorenz as Robert, Beatrice Manowski as Betty, Harald Lundt as Bruno, Collosseo as Joe, Christiane Baumgarten as the Woman in Dream, Harals Weis as the Garden Victim, and Volker Hauptvogel as the Man with Gun.

This was Buttgereit’s first feature-length film; he previously made only Super 8 featurettes. He and co-writer Franz Rodenkirchen conceived the basic concept while discussing love, sex, and death, including the idea of connecting an orgasm to the moment of death. The no-budget film used inexpensive special effects, actual animal intestines, and pig eyeballs. A rabbit-related scene uses documentary-style footage of a professional rabbit breeder. The musical score was composed by Hermann Kopp, Bernd Daktari Lorenz, and John Boy Walton.