"Nightmarish" is an adjective that gets thrown around a lot when describing horror movies. What doesn't scare you may be terrifying to someone else, and all art is subjective and yada yada... you know the drill. Yet, I'd feel hard pressed to get anyone to describe Gerald Kargl and Zbigniew Rybczyński's 1983 masterpiece Angst as anything less. Most films elicit their scares solely from what's being depicted onscreen. Clever use of audio, whether in the form of the movie's actual score or a well-timed DUN, certainly helps to accentuate fear. And let's not forget about framing, about what, as an audience, we are and are not allowed to see. All of these elements, when expertly combined, help to craft an unforgettable cinematic experience. This sense of fear has been mastered time and time again by the films you'd expect to see in any "definitive" ranking of spookiest of the spookuloids. You know, you're Halloweens, your Exorcists, your Shinings. But nowhere, and I mean NOWHERE, do I ever see Angst listed. And when it is, it's certainly not near the top. Which is a shame, because Angst is one of the most terrifying, unnerving, twisted and genuinely unpleasant films I have ever seen.
Erwin Leder, billed as K., The Psychopath, expertly portrays our unhinged antagonist, who in turn is loosely based around real-life Austrian mass murderer, Werner Kniesek. Leder appears completely immersed in this character, and we watch K. slink, crawl, scuttle and stumble throughout the course of the movie. Having grown up around people suffering from mental health issues throughout his childhood (Leder's father worked as a doctor in a psychiatric hospital), Leder was able to channel this into his performance to a unnerving degree. This background helps make K. seem all too real, which in turn makes all the impulses he acts upon seem all the more horrifying.
Immediately the viewer will notice the camerawork. In fact, the cinematography, courtesy of co-writer and editor Zbigniew Rybczyński, tends to be the focal point whenever anyone discusses Angst. It's not without reason, however, as the camera literally slides and glides all over the place. The opening shot, one that appears to be a very slow tilt as the camera crawls down the side of a penitentiary, is so cleverly crafted that it gives off the impression that the viewer is just as low and scummy as the man we follow throughout the course of the following 83 minutes, as if we're watching this from a sewer. It's like a bastardization of the celebrated opening shot of I Am Cuba, except instead of feeling like you're immersed in a great rooftop party you're actually a dung beetle scuttling towards the filthiest pile of shit in existence.
Unhinged men in cinema is nothing new and while there are countless great examples to pick from, all too often these characters become elevated to celebrity status and worshipped by edgelords the world over. I mean, how many people do you know who still point finger guns at you while saying, "You talking to me?" Yet, what separates these men from someone like K. is that all these anti-heroes have some kind of plan, some kind of end that they must meet. K., however, fully acknowledges that everything will come crashing down sooner than later, and its that ferocity, the race against the clock, that truly makes him seem animalistic. He's in a complete frenzy, like a cross between the homeless man in the green suit from Holy Motors and the central character from Clean, Shaven, just absolute, complete desperation.
Honestly, this whole movie is one big kaleidoscopic, hyperkinetic ordeal. It's not for the faint of heart, and I'm not saying that because there's excessive gore or violence. It's just that intense. Imagine putting your foot all the way down on the gas pedal but the floor is made of instant-dry cement so there's no letting up, even though you're coming up to a bend in the road. Angst will certainly sit well with fans of Possession, Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer or the works of Gaspar Noe. It's thrilling and enchanting, despite being downright nasty and foul. It's in a league all of its own. In fact, it's utterly nightmarish.
