A lot of films like to try and avoid categorisation, branching away from horror into other realms of drama. They usually lose something along the way, sticking more closely to one genre than another. This is one of those. However for all the non-horror elements ... it is generally still pretty horrifying. Unlike late 1970s classics like Suspiria that assault the viewer with eye watering visuals and crazy nightmare music, this is a sensory barrage of an entirely different kind. Despite familiar names like Sam Neill appearing in the main cast there's nothing really to latch onto that makes any of this seem comparable to other releases from this era. Even the title is a kind of red herring, and the story itself breaks away from anything expected right out of the gate.
In the first few minutes a few small details appear that begin to signal just what kind of story this will be. The music is a little like all late 1970s tunes by Goblin and the name of Carlo Rambaldi (creator of effects for E.T. and Alien) appears, in a credit simply for 'the creature'. It all starts to come together. Then, moments later the whole thing falls away and any sense of familiarity is lost. Unless you're familiar with particularly nasty domestic problems in married life I suppose. But wasn't this a horror film? Well yes and no. Maybe but maybe not? This feeling of a narrative hook to grab onto being just out of reach is something that continues as things progress, and while it's always completely unnerving there's always an elusive, alien feeling to everything here.
On the one hand the first 45 minutes or so are some of the most disconcerting, harrowing depictions of a failed relationship that have ever been produced. The plot itself concerns Mark (Sam Neill) returning from a secretive job away from home - possibly on the other side of The Berlin Wall. It's a structure which is a constant presence just out of the frame. The details aren't important, but he's determined to leave his employers to return to family life. There isn't a lot of direct exposition in general, you just have to try and keep up and infer what you can. However soon his wife Anna (Isabelle Adjani) wants a separation for reasons that are frustratingly vague. It eventually turns out that she's found someone else, but then it gets a whole lot weirder - and it's not just because her lover Heinrich (Hans Bennent) is an eccentric crackpot.
Somewhere around the half way point it all starts to become less of a plot and more of a nightmare experience. Every few minutes the main couple have a big freak out, and there's a lot of yelling, screeching and flailing. At one point Mark flips out in a café after trying to be civil and wakes up minutes - or possible weeks - later with a full beard, only able to speak garbled nonsense down the telephone. He's missing time and so are you. Attempts to reach out to Anna end in several bizarre confrontations including a kitchen incident in which both of them cut themselves with an electric appliance. In almost every scene characters start to lose their minds and begin to be covered in their own blood, tears and saliva. Even the poor child at the centre of the divide is covered with what seems to be fruit jam in one instance. It's a big, messy and often perplexing chain of events.
The performances themselves are probably the main thing that stands out here, beyond the grey, stark, and eerie industrial landscapes of early 1980s Germany. Isabelle Adjani as Anna is practically unrecognisable from her roles in other art-house features like Subway and Nosferatu the Vampyre. The guilt racked, obsessive, crazy eyed lunacy really is something to see as things begin to fall apart. The other cast members feel less natural somehow despite all being in various states of madness in one way or another. Mark and Heinrich's scenes together often feel comical as the latter flops about, writhing against walls and talking in spiritualist mantras.
But what I hear you ask, about ... the creature. So yes, meanwhile it seems that Anna is hiding another secret acquaintance. Who (or what) is this mystery friend of hers? I suppose it's up to your own interpretation of the themes here. Although it's certainly a reality in the story rather than a complete allegory or the result of an over active imagination. At times it feels like something from The Brood, but making any comparisons between this and other films is a futile exercise. The third act is full of sex, murder, arson, car wrecks and police shoot outs as well as what may or may not be a doppelgänger twist of some sort. It's hardly a spoiler when so much of this is so essentially cryptic and evasive.
The recurring wall imagery, the mystery double lives and the weird lookalikes who appear all serve this underlying subtext as well as the actual plot depending on how you want to think about them. Simply as an experience it's pretty unique, as something that will stick with you beyond the infamous psychological meltdown in a subway station. It's not really a monster movie, but at the same time perhaps it is - just probably not the kind you'd ever be expecting if the title conjures up something like The Exorcist. Those looking for a grim domestic thriller may also be overwhelmed, but if you want something in the middle and maybe a whole lot more it's well worth a shot.
4/5
