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Simply A Masterpiece

A Masterpiece!

I really wanted to like this movie. I feel terribly cynical trashing it, and that's why I'm giving it a middling 5. Actually, I'm giving it a 5 because there were some superb performances.

German underground director Olaf Ittenbach's first full-length feature is an almost plot less shot-on-video movie with bad production values and great special effects. Splatter fans will get their money's worth here with a never-ending stream of gore effects which first show up around the half-hour mark and never let up from there. Despite the low budget and amateurish nature of the movie the special effects are actually very good and to a professional standard. The film features tons of mayhem with lots of arms and legs being chopped off, impalings, guts falling out, chainsaw dismemberments and the like. Blood and gristle flows everywhere and the last half an hour of the film goes way over the top with non-stop carnage and murder as Ittenbach turns into a demon and goes around slaughtering all of his family members and friends in various splattery ways.Unfortunately as a viewer I need something to go with my special effects, like a story perhaps or some action a la BLADE II, another showcase for gore which worked due to a tense plot and great fights. BLACK PAST doesn't have a story, at least after the first half an hour. The excuse for all the mayhem is a cursed mirror which causes a man to murder his own child in the prologue and which Ittenbach discovers in his attic. Immediately his girlfriend dies and returns as a zombie to haunt Ittenbach in scenes which are directly lifted from THE EVIL DEAD, right down to the disturbing laughing noises the girl makes as she attacks him. Whole sequences are copied from the Raimi classic as well as other effects and shots being lifted from EVIL DEAD 2 and DEMONS. After cutting his girlfriend's head off for the third time, Ittenbach is temporarily relieved of the horror, but begins to suffer nasty nightmares including a horrible bit where he slashes his body all over with a straight razor.At this point he turns into a gooey monster and the blood flows until the credits roll. Outside of the gore effects, BLACK PAST shows little imagination. Here, Ittenbach is obviously acting more as an effects technician than a director, concentrating on the elaborate mayhem at the expense of pace, story or dialogue. The acting is appalling but this is to be expected; what I didn't expect was to be bored by the latter half of the film. Disturbed, disgusted perhaps, yes, but not bored. Sadly the gore is all samey and once you've seen ten minutes of it it doesn't hold much interest. Occasionally some imagination pops up (the bleeding doll/burning pram scene) only to disappear again in another exhausting welter of blood and guts carnage. BLACK PAST deserves ten out of ten for the brilliant SFX but one out of ten for everything else.

But I didn't get one. Instead, I get a debut film from gore master, Ittenbach, back when he was a teen. Yes, you heard folks, Ittenbach was at his teen years when this was made, and boy did he have a sick, twisted mind; and he does prove that by making the most god- awful of debuts, BLACK PAST, which wants to be the new EVIL DEAD (the movie that stars Bruce Campbell, that stunk too), because he drags scenes too long, like when Thommy (why is there even an H I will never know) kills his girlfriend, who was suddenly possessed by the devil of the mirror he stupidly took from a wooden box, that keeps coming back and we just wonder where we've seen this already. Now let's get to reviewing to this "video". The acting is terrible. Ittenbach might not have heard of a take, because these people cannot act. The story isn't even good, like really? A mirror with a dark past which is possessed by the devil by what? We never know because this movie lacks logic. There is tons of gore (like if you want to call it that) thrown over this movie you might want to be screwed over by it, but sadly I'm not one. The main character, Thommy is a whiny idiot. How's it going over there being a drama queen, you bad actor? What? You're not as good as Tom Savini?

This is the first movie directed by Olaf Ittenbach, and it is definitely a gorehound treasure. The story revolves around a mirror in a chained up chest in an attic, that when placed on the wall, opens up a can of ghoulish gore about as graphic as any gore movie I have ever seen. I just loved it. Yes, it's a low-budget straight to video film, but this is done extremely well, with gore effects that are mind-blowing. Olaf may have gotten a little inspiration from EVIL DEAD on this one, but he maintains an interesting story, good characters, and effects that are amazing, and even a decent soundtrack. This is splatter film making at its low-budget best, and I can't wait to watch the other Olaf movies I have now, and a couple still to come. I'm very impressed with his gore effects, it reminds me of the good old days back in the eighties when these gore movies were all over the place, but this one kicks major ass compared to most of those. This is definitely a gorehound delight.

I am a huge Ittenbach fan, I love Premutos and Burning Moon was pretty cool as well. Ittenbach himself stars in this movie. The version i have is not subtitled and is in german, so i have no idea what is going on. Its starts in the past with some guy killing a little girl, later on Olaf finds this mirror and it somehow starts crazy stuff. First his girlfriend is hit by a car and she later comes back to life. This is the part of the movie where you know Olaf is inspired by Sam Raimi's Evil Dead. He tries and tries to kill her again, but she keeps coming back. Olaf finally turns into a sort of demon and kills everybody off. There is even a cool scene in hell, while not as graphic as Burning Moons Hell Sequence, it still has some cool gore scenes. If you like Gore, then check this movie out, as well as other Olaf Ittenbach movies . Don't expect to come away from this movie knowing the whole story unless you know german. Great movie!