**THIS TRANSCRIPT WAS A.I GENERATED AND MAY NOT BE 100% ACCURATE**

This is death by DVD. And you are listening to Harry Scans Sullivan. Your host. And on this episode, you're going to feel the love, the cold, ooey gooey, slimy, maggot infested love. Because we are talking about neck, romantic to the return of the loving dead or die rocker dare Lee bend in tone on this Fresh from the Grave episode of Death by DVD.

Yeah, that sounded authentically German. Die rocker Dare Lee beaned and hot and I'm accenting it. so very much. This movie is the sequel to the seminal I'm going to call it seminal 1987 West German film Neck Romantic, written and directed by Jörg Buttgereit co-written by Franz Rodenkirchen. We have done a few episodes about the work work of Jorge,here on Death by DVD before.

And one thing you can take from all of those episodes is I'm almost 100% certain I pronounce his name differently every single time. This time I'm really hoping I get it right. I have to. Out of all of these different episodes, I've called him Jörg Buttgereit.Jörg Buttgereit. Jörg Buttgereit. Great. Your butt grit. And probably ten variations of all of those together.

But I think this time I got it down. I think this time, after listening to him say his own name 20 times in a row, probably still saying it incorrectly, but. Boot Great. I think it's eight not eat. I don't know. But I will apologize immediately at the beginning of this episode for continuously saying the gentleman's name wrong.

But the caveat is I'm not here to say his name correctly. I'm here to give you my interpretation. Maybe that might be a lot. My thoughts? Sure. My thoughts on some of his work. And by some of his work, I mean, I've done Der Todesking and, Nekromantik. And now we're doing Nekromantik 2. I am certainly a fan.

I don't think that would come to a surprise to our audience, especially if you've heard the other episodes, one of which was made available directly before this episode's release. And on that episode, I talk about how much I like the guy. Born in 1963. Berlin, West Germany. Jorge has consistently throughout his career, always had an alternative outlook for what you could easily call horror movies.

And I hope I'll get back to this point later on throughout the show. But in my mind, there is a debate whether or not an argument can recommend a two hour horror movie. Nekromantik. Also, Schramm, I think, is very open and closed as a horror film, but not to reference the episode too much. There is another episode about Nekromantik, one that you can listen to and I talk a lot about the themes and the meaning.

My opinion, of course, of what is happening in that film, and I interpret a lot of your work and go into great detail about it. I think very much that Nekromantik 1987 is not a horror movie. I do think I call it a horror movie on that episode, but fucking well Nekromantik 2, will be a lot of similarities because I don't really think this is a horror movie.

It's got the aspects of it. It looks like a horror movie. It acts like a horror movie at times, somewhat anarchic, manic. You can definitely say acts like a horror movie, but not romantic too. It's its own thing. And initially I was really, really excited to use Death by DVD as a platform to talk about Nekromantik 2, and unfortunately this has happened to me before.

The more I thought about it, the more I've conceptualized it. I have the biggest difficulty talking about movies that I really, really like that I really feel passionate about because it gets to a point where it's like, Well, I like it. That's why I like it. That's it. That's the show. I like it. We could end right here.

And that's no fun. That's nothing. That's not a show. It may be a show to a lot of other people, but it's not a show here at Death by DVD. The first episode about Nekromantik It is jam packed with information about the production of the movie, information about the director. And I try to break down the scenes and the structure of the movie and guide you through it.

And I thought, you know, just follow through with that and do it on the Nekromantik to episode offer the same thing. Then there's some fluency for it. But I just I just think that's so boring for this movie. And really, in my humble opinion, it was boring for the first movie. But I am my own harshest critic.

I don't know why it seems to be harder for me to deeply discuss movies I fervently like, and it's not like movies that I've gone into great detail on this program I don't like. It's the maximum attitude of how much I like it, I guess, which is a weird way to say things, but I really, really, really like Nekromantik 2.

Now I'm sure you can go back and hear me say the same thing about necromancy, but I like this one a lot more and I don't think that one is better than the other because without part one, you wouldn't have part tomb without part one. Part two, it's not that it wouldn't make sense. I don't feel you have to have seen the first movie to enjoy this because the first movie is explained throughout this film, and mostly in the first few moments of this film.

But it does help and it does help perhaps give you a deeper appreciation of the second movie, because the first movie, I think is a little bit more cruel. The first movie is darker, and despite being a love story, it's a sad love story. And this film arguably, sure, it could be interpreted as a sad love story, but I don't fucking crazy.

Don't think it is. And if you've seen this movie, you know why I think that's fucking crazy? If you haven't, while spoilers are going to come, let's get that out of the way. Now I'm just going to talk about the entirety of this film. I'm sure I'll bounce around from different places. I'm not going to start at the beginning and go all the way through the end.

We're just going to talk about Nekromantik 2 heavy spoilers. If this is your introduction to this film, if this is your introduction to the work of your but great he what's the least I can say? It's abnormal comparative to even your most unusual horror films. If you are familiar with the work of Lucio Fulci or Dario Argento, Joe D'Amato, Jess Franco, even John Carpenter, Wes Craven, there are a lot of unusual concepts in their films.

Wes Craven's The Hills Have Eyes. You've got these new killer cannibals living out in the desert, eating people, baby eating, dog eating, all sorts of rough territory, abstract, unusual concepts. Yorgos Work is is far off from even those territories. And of course, his his his most famous work is Nekromantik. It's about how eloquently to say it corpse fucking.

There's a lot more to it than just corpse fucking. But predominantly that's the movie. That's what it's known for. Its in the fucking title NEKROMANTIK You got to have some idea of what's going to happen with a movie called Nekromantik dared to do skiing. You could say is entirely about suicide, but I've done a whole episode on that film as well and you can go back and listen to it.

I have some alternative opinions on what it's about there thematically, and all of Yorgos work is love. Love is the greatest substance for all of his work, and he's a very intricate, bizarre person. I don't mean that insultingly whatsoever. I'm a bizarre person myself. His way of showing love is just a completely alternative, alternative film actually, to what you are used to or what anyone really is used to.

But I stand by all of my statements I've made before that Necro Manic is a love film, but this is like the ultimate love film. You could take all the scenes of violence. You could take the whole corpse thing out of the movie and recut it, and it would be such a quaint, artistic love movie. It would be so questionable, questionable, questionable.

that's already starting this early end of the episode. Questionable what the subtext of the movie would be without the necrophilia, but it still would stand on its own two feet. It would be its entire own production. Even if you cut all of that out, that's how strong of a movie this is. Now, Necro Manic is 75 minutes, hour and 15 minutes necromancy.

Romantic two is 111 minutes, which is one hour and 51 minutes. We have maximized our time when it comes to this depiction of love and in the first film, there are a lot of wandering shots. There is a lot of artistic stuff. I mean, it's not like it's an influence, but it's very young people working on their first films and it's very dreamlike.

You could pull out of your ass. Some French directors name that it might have been influenced as this movie is a little bit tighter, but it clearly can't be because it's so much more longer. It doesn't wander in these dreamlike and I hate this term. I know you use it on the previous episode of Fever Dream. It doesn't put you in a world like that.

It's much more concise and it's much more straight to the point with what you are getting to see on screen. But man, some scenes run an excessive amount of time, but the argument that could be had for that is the excessive amount of time these scenes run really builds an anticipatory factor that kind of destroys you. It really pushes you because you're expecting if you've seen the first film especially so much and you're just waiting for it to happen and all of what you are expecting and more, it does show up in the movie, but that anticipatory factor pushing you with these ridiculously long running scenes, it keeps you itching and keeps you hungering for

it. And then when you see it is there's some extravagant stuff in this movie. We're at the beginning of the episode right now, though, so a hold on to that. I will bite my tongue because I'm not expecting everyone ready to No neck, romantic neck, romantic to the work of yours, but great. You could, I guess, easily say that this is an extreme film underground I don't think you can get away with.

Certainly. Once upon a time, this. This could be considered an underground movie. I think when I first saw this film, it was probably considered an underground film. But you can get it on Blu ray in beautiful quality. I own the cult Epix dual Disc seven has Nick Romantic one and Nick Romantic two looks wonderful. Just just insane. The first film was shot on Super eight in 16 millimeter.

This was shot on 16 and then blown up to 35 to present at film festivals and whatnot. But it looks, I don't know, just a couple of years later, so much of a deeper professional edge and perhaps I'm using this term incorrectly because I don't mean it in the sense of the film style. I mean it more in the sense of the music genre.

This film is a little bit more new wave. It's it's just got a vibrancy that wasn't available beforehand. There's a color palette, its basic colors, too, that exists throughout certain characters, whole worlds and things that represent the characters. And I want to say now, before we go further, this isn't that deep of a movie. Neither is Nick romantic.

In fact, both of these films have something in common, and I think their total skiing, I dare say, has something in common with them all. They don't ask anything of you. They don't make you sit down and think for hours. Well, what did that mean? What does this color correspond to? What interpretation of an ancient Greek tragedy am I being shown by the director?

I don't feel any of that's really a part of the movie. You watch it and there's a simplicity to it. This love story in either film, in this case. Nick Romantic too, is shown to you from beginning to end, without any prejudice, without any interpretation of who's a good person or who is a bad person. There is absolutely no villain ization of who these people are.

We are just interjected into their lives and we are watching this story for better or for worse. And also just because I say it's a love story, just because I have the spin and this interpretation on the film doesn't mean that you have to have those feelings too. They're not invalid, they're not wrong. It's kind of the point of the whole fucking show.

It's my opinion on the matter. You don't have to take it close to heart, but it might. And my hope, my goal is to make, if you've seen the film, a different thought process available for you because not everybody enjoys stuff like this. And if you haven't seen the film to give you something to look at and a perspective to have as you watch it.

But truly, when the credits roll at the end of the film, there is no long aghast moment of you putting your head in your hand and thinking, Well, what does all this represent? It's given to you, is given to you very cleanly, very articulately. I think there is a further articulation in this film than the first film. Like romantic, that film.

It's not that it appears to be or feel like a student film, but it seems like a student of film. It seems like somebody really trying to get things to stick to the walls, throwing them at the wall. Does this work? Will this work? It's very dreamlike. It it almost seems to hesitate at times to really give you both barrels to really shoot what the concept of the movie is at you as to where this film has no stuttering, it has no hesitation.

From the very beginning you were introduced to the world of these people and it's sturdy. It really sticks to what I think the backbone, the ethos of of this movie, these movies, I guess I should say, because the pair of them matter together what it what it really is. And it's love. It's a love story, nothing more, nothing less.

Just a love story. So I won't do the whole plot and dive into absolutely every scene. But let's tell you what this movie is about. It's a pretty simple format for Story Girl Meets Boy. Things don't work out, Girl meets another boy. She's enchanted by her previous love. It's all that she understands and knows about. And she tries her hardest to accept her new reality in what the new world is.

Her new lover. She works so hard at achieving normalcy before, quote unquote, normalcy. We'll get more into that in a minute and realizes that her love is just so strong with the previous partner. It's immortal. It's forever. It's death defying. It's a classical love story. It could be a Byron poem. Someone loves someone just so absolutely much, so deeply, so invigorating.

We have that they will do anything to be with them, to feel sensuality, to feel the connection with them. The catch is the person she loves. They're dead. And this is what I mean, that your mood great has a unusual method with his madness, with his storytelling. You could take a subject matter like this, and you can make it very, very obscene.

You can make it very, very racy. And I don't think he did. I don't think either of the films are particularly obscene. And I can certainly say I don't think there's any violence for the sake of violence or any violence that indulges in violent fantasy or promoting a form of violence whatsoever. I've heard York Boot great himself talk about violence being celebrated is like heat.

There's a good one. Michael Mann There's an incredible amount of violence, and it's so simplistic in that film. People get shot, they fall down, they're dead. There is no concept on them living. There's no concept on them being individual human beings that lived, that possessed time that we all share, that they weren't a force of energy. They just die.

They just go away. Neither of the romantic films do something like that. The first film we get to see even how the corpse is procured, the person before they died, how it was brought forth into the apartment and becoming a part of this couple's love affair. Because of that first film, we have the wonderful setup for the very first scene of this movie.

Our lead characters introduced to us almost immediately. Monica played by Monica Em. She finds the corpse of Robert SHYMANSKY, played by Daktari, Laurens, James, Daktari. Laurens, our hero, let's say, from the first film, who achieved his ultimate goal of love. At the end of that film and the first scenes of Nic Romantic to show you the so wonderful climax of Nic.

Romantic Come and blood Absolutely everywhere within the first 60 seconds of this movie. And Monica digs up Rob's body and takes it home. And this is where admittedly, there are some extravagantly long sequences that just run and run and run. And it gives you that art movie feeling. It does feel particularly European. There is a particular emptiness, and that's really because of how this movie was shot and the time that this movie was shot.

The Berlin Wall had just come down and people were afraid of the cameras. George shot this mostly guerilla style. They had no permits from the German government whatsoever to do it, but people saw the cameras and were like, Well, let's get the fuck out of the way. We don't want to be on the news. We don't know what's going on.

And so much of the movie, there is just a lack of people. The cast is very, very tight itself. You do have a sequence that takes place in a bar and there's like a patron, maybe two and the bartender. So at the most, Jeez, you have a scene that takes place in a movie theater. But much of the people in the movie theater, Jorge Buttgereit

The director himself is in that scene, I believe writer Franz Rodd Incursion is in that scene. Several crew members are in that scene. There aren't other people, it seems almost fantasy like, and it's emptiness. And you don't notice it. You don't you don't pay attention to it. And I think maybe most people, I'm willing to say when they when they watch this film or when they hunt this film down, when people see it for the first time, it's because they're looking for something explicit and very shocking.

It is a lurid movie. It's been banned all around the world. It's still banned in several places to this day. And you really want to see the audacious horror aspects of this movie. You don't look for anything else. You're just waiting the entire time to see something offensive, something violent. And because of that, I feel general audiences, mass audiences for this movie even have really missed out on the beauty of it, because there are a lot of articulate shots in this.

Maybe there's a lot of beautiful shots. In fact, when the film is beginning, it's just very lonely shots of the cemetery and the grave being dug up. You've got some really great shots of Monica M And we we see her, we take her in. There is no prejudice. Now, there's a stipulation, of course, because the movie begins with somebody digging up a dead body.

So inherently your thoughts are led to, well, that's wrong. That's desecration, really. Both of the films begin the same way. Nick Romantic has a scene of desecration and death at the very beginning of the film. This begins with a desecration, but it's not death that's tied with it. It's love. It's pushing love forward even more from that first movie because it's hard.

And I admit to grasp who's love. You're feeling the representation. You have two different characters in that film, and both of them morally sure they're not doing the right thing, digging up corpses and collecting body parts and fucking them. We can collectively, I think, agree on that being wrong, especially morally wrong. Sure. But that's not the point. It's not the point of the movies whatsoever.

Sure, it could be the shock value, but it's not the point. There is no elaborate backstory. There is no well, this is why Monica loved Rob so much. All you can assume is that there was something similar in their hearts. There's not an explicit scene telling you that the story of Robert SHYMANSKY has been put all over the news.

But there's a representation and an idea that this person didn't just die. The last time we see Rob is the end of Nekromantik, where he is stabbing himself in the stomach and coming at the same time with this gigantic fucking cock. And then the credits roll. But someone had to find the body at some point. Someone had to know that he died and as we see in that film, his apartment is littered with all sorts of body parts kept in jars with formaldehyde.

He has a very extensive collection of death. So Monica, whoever she is, has followed the case, has fallen in love with the idea of this person. It's it's ships passing in the night, this lonely idea of love, infatuation, really. You could even compare it now to these, like, parasocial relationships people have with celebrities or Instagram models and things like that.

You don't know the person, you know, an idea of them, and you've fallen in love with that. Ryan Gosling and Blade Runner 2049 with the whole simulation thing, you fall in love with an idea, but that idea can just capture your heart because it's all that you have. It's all that you know. Monica, we can assume, isn't living a normal life because of her.

I dare say fetishes, but I don't really think it's a fetish. We don't really explore. And there's no need to, though I think exploring would negate the point of who these people are, and that's what kind of makes things perfect, that you don't know who they are. You don't know who anyone is. You don't know who that person is that sits next to you at work or the person that's on the bus, the seat away from you, the clerk, the cashier at the store.

You don't know who anybody is at all. And even people that you really know. Do you think that they share with you their deepest, darkest secrets? Probably not. Especially when they're as deep and as dark as what Monica's secrets are. Because necrophilia, there's no ifs or buts. It's pretty fucking weird. It's really fucking weird. Weird might not actually be the right word for it.

It's not. Let's just say it's not fucking normal. But what is normal? See? Obscenity. Filth. Does it exist or is it in your head? There are things that morally. Yes, are wrong, but are they obscene? And of course, the argument comes down to the morals of man and la la land and all sorts of things of what makes things moral.

But I've brought this up before. There's morality, there's laws, there's normalcy, but then there's love. I feel morality is something that's natural love. On the other hand, I don't think that's entirely natural. So the concept of love being introduced as the driving force for this film kind of throws morality out the window because you have an unnatural force.

Hate could be considered something that is a natural feeling. You could burn yourself and you hate that fire. You know that fire is painful. You know what that fire can do? But love. There are so many more questions. There isn't any force. There isn't any 1 to 3. There isn't any science behind Love fire hurts, fire disfigured, fire melts you away.

You can hate that. You can hate what that force is. But love, how could you even really describe love? I mean, what are you going to say? Well, I love my wife. I have this feeling for her. Well, can you be more descriptive? What do you mean, a feeling? I have a feeling when I have to take a shit.

What do you mean, a feeling? You can't. And I'm sure linguists and beautiful people Shakespeare can break down. Love has broken down love There are soliloquies out the ass describing what love feels like to very specific people. But fucking scientifically, what is it? Because of that question? Because of what is it you're allowed to? And I'm not saying this as a rule, this isn't some like film school horseshit.

This is just me. Because of that, you're allowed to really do whatever the fuck you want with your interpretation of love, even if it's violent love, even if it's Negro fail love. And I'm not saying because of that. If you consider violence, love that I Spit On Your Grave is a romance movie. No, that's that's not at all the point I'm trying to make.

And I would very much disagree with you, but with this question, with this almost anonymity of what love is Nick romantic and that romantic to go into just unknown territory. You can't pin down these people. And even the first film, you don't know who they are. You get maybe a more clear cut idea of their lives thhat
Monica, we find out at one point is a nurse, which is very disturbing, very, very disturbing. And we've not even gotten to the male lead yet who has a very, very interesting job. But the point that I am trying to make I hope I made is because of this question mark, because of this lack of definition of love itself and possibly the unnatural city, I don't know if that's a word of love itself.

You're allowed to really drift. You're allowed to go into a headspace, to a whole realm that you may have never thought about before. You can easily become infatuated with people you've never met. You can fall in love with people that you have never met in person. So what's there to say that you can't fall in love with the dead?

And that is the beginning of this movie. That is what happens. Monica is very much in love with somebody that is very, very, very dead. And then we get to meet our male lead, Mark, who's played by Mark Reeder, a very, very fascinating man. One of the most important people, I think, in electronic music, which is a very weird right turn from talking about a corpse fucking movie.

Now all of a sudden we're talking about electronic music. I heavily suggest you look up Mark reader. Our IED or not only is the lead in this film, but in credibly incredibly important to not just the European electronic music scene and synth pop, but worldwide. He's a musician, record producer, very, very talented person, and I think I could probably take 30 minutes talking about all the awesome, cool things that he did with the new wave scene, the electronic music scene, dance music scene, his discovery and producing of other artists.

This guy is the lead in the corpse fucking movie or Segway in Out of the Mark Reeder story. He also formed Frantic Elevators. Lot of stuff. Mark Reader has a great deal of achievements in this film. He plays a pretty normal person who you can understand having problems with their love life. When you learn what they do for a living.

He works in the porn industry. He's not a porn star. He records the dubs for porn movies, so he spends his days watching fuck films. And I can say personally, after a point in time of watching a great deal of exploitation cult weird, strange last horror movies, you not so much get desensitized, but it certainly is a form of decency, disassociation, desensitization, desensitizing, desensitizing.

here we go again. Nothing shocks you anymore. Maybe I feel too much like Max Ren from Videodrome, but you're constantly pushing yourself to find something more audacious, something more offensive, something that pushes you into those other realms and comfort zones that necromancy and necromancy had to happen to be able to do. But you lose touch with what the average person might consider to be shocking and offensive.

And that is where Mark is in his life. He's struggling to get by in a world of loneliness. Now you can really interpret that romantic to more than the first film to be deeply political, and certainly it is. I don't digress into that, though for one specific reason. This is very political to the filmmakers and the people of that time period.

The Berlin Wall coming down, though it seems so long ago, drastically changed the lives of everyone involved in those immediate areas and the political nature of this film, it hasn't faded. But if it's not something immediate to you, especially with your knowledge of German politics and why that wall was put up, it doesn't seem like it has a point just as much as Nick.

Romantic too, is a romance love film. It is also a political film. But unlike something like Cannibal Holocaust, which I seemingly can't get through an episode without bringing it up, but I do think it is the ultimate political horror film. And the essence of that movie rides on the politics of that movie. This can be taken either way.

You don't have to look too deep into it. And as I said previously, this movie doesn't ask anything of you. It does not ask you to look into the political aspects of the film. But they do certainly exist. They are. They are relevant. They are relevant and they are in the film. But it's kind of hard to get to those points if you aren't understanding of the political climate.

And I can say personally, I don't know fucking shit about fuck about West German 1990s politics. I just know it's there. I think there is a great chance if you do understand those politics, that the movie drastically could change tone. And I think from even the very, very beginning of the movie, it's seeped more in romance than anything else.

It's just a completely unusual aspect of romance. But saying that really is it's so unusual. Let's go all the way back to Billy Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet. Two teenagers fall in love with each other and they make the suicide pact. And that's writing throughout the entirety of the whole story. My parents hate your parents. Their families were never going to be able to be together.

So let's just kill ourselves. And then we can be forever in heaven. Romeo and Juliet. The names themselves have become synonymous with love. They have become attached to it. I love you. Just like Romeo loved Juliet. That's pretty extreme. That might almost be unhealthy. And certainly the love in this film is very much unhealthy because Monica loves the dead guy.

Rob stabbed himself multiple times in the stomach, and he has been underground for, I think like six, seven months. He's dark blue, he's gooey, he's rotting, he's maggot infested. James Deck, Tory Lawrence, who played Robert SHYMANSKY in Nick Romantic, was asked to come back and to play the body in this film. And apparently he didn't care for Nick Romantic very much.

He didn't like the final product of the film and he declined to do so. But he did have his body and his head cast to create the corpse for the film, And it's just as much as the character as the corpse was in the first film. And the first film you see this person and you get to see them living and who they are and they die and they become part of the relationship.

From that point forward once the body is found, of course. But now we're following through from the first film. We know Rob, we know who he is. In fact, this might be the greatest thing for someone like him. His character consistently, the whole journey of Nick romantic is just reaching out to the unknown for some sort of love, some sort of satisfaction too, to fit in, to be acknowledged, to be a shining star.

Now he is coveted. He is the most beloved object that this person, Monica, has whatsoever. It is the complete, total idea of affection. And Monica digs up this body and she takes it home to her apartment. And it's a very beautiful sequence, disgusting and grotesque and vile all the same, where she commits her first act of sensuality with the body, she fucks this corpse and then immediately throws up.

It's covered in goo. It's just kind of pulsing. It's perfect. It's a wonderful body. It just looks so horrid dying. It pushes you through this movie of the disgust of her writing and grinding her hips against this thick fucking mucus that's just oozing out of the. it's terrifying, but it's sensual and it's handled sensually. It's handled just like any love scene that you would see between any two actors.

Leonardo DiCaprio fucking somebody. It's handled in that same unique sense, the dim lighting, the low music. You get to focus on the body parts and you see them moving against each other. There is a surreal sensuality in the representations of these scenes because it's nothing more than just a love scene, just because it's a dead body. And I know it's hard to suspend your morals, It's hard to step away from what you acknowledge and know to be right and wrong.

I'm not arguing what's right and wrong. I think fucking a corpse is wrong. I don't think it's morally right at all and I don't think it's right in any aspect. But when you can push that out of your head and especially understand that you're watching a movie and just take in that art, there is a great sensuality to what I think over the first film and this very first love scene, and I've always questioned what happens next.

She she's sex. She gets up and she throws up and I don't I used to think that it was a moral compass kind of kicking into self-disgust. I can't believe what I'm doing. I'm going to throw up. And now I just kind of think it stank now. Now, I don't think there's anything that disrupts her thought process I don't think Monica ever wants changes that she knows deep down inside what she feels is right.

And she just had to vomit because of how disgusting. It is. That's my interpretation of it. And I've seen this movie. She's on and off for the last 20 years or so a lot. I mean, this this was a very early you have to see this film. And I think for most people. Nick Romantic and Nick romantic, too, are things when you want to find strange and unusual films, when you begin an exploitation journey.

These are immediate movies like Luci Fulci's the Beyond, Argento's Suspiria. Roger Watkins House on Terence Street. There movies that you have heard so much about from other people and read about, they've been covered in Fangoria, Rue Morgue, deep red, everything. You really want to find these films and you tend to you might not have seen it and that's fine.

Find them early into that journey and you see them and you understand what's going on in the movie, but you have blinders on to really what's going on. It's an exploitation cult horror movie you can so easily say and dismiss it for being just that. It's something that's shocking. There's animal violence in the film. I should have said at the beginning of the show that there's some animal violence.

You've got footage of a SEAL autopsy is a little unusual. It's not seals being clubbed and skinned. It's just an autopsy of a seal. And all of this is interjected and given to you like the violence from the first film to question make you rather question Why are you watching this? Why are you watching a horror movie? Your good greed feels because so many people hide behind the excuse.

I like the effects. I like the special effects. They don't want to admit why they're watching a horror film. Movies that interject this violence Cannibal Holocaust again, as an example, they really make you question and they give a duality to the reasoning of what this movie is and who the audience is. It's almost a litmus test for the audience.

Nobody wants to make it through that. Your game so fast forwards through the animal scenes, they're not a representation of who these people are, which is something of note to bring up. Neck, romantic and neck romantic to York was a fairly young man when he was making these films. They're not master pictorial fantasies of what he wants to do.

You're not getting a representation of this is the director. This is who they are as a person. It's just an extension of. I already referenced him earlier, but almost Byron esque love stories. There's an infinite sadness to both of these films because all of the characters, they're lusting for something that they can never quite obtain. Mark readers character conveniently named Mark.

He's a very lonely person. Everyone at the beginning of this movie is steeped in loneliness, and they're just looking for some form of comfort. And as we progress and move throughout the lengthy body of this movie, that's all we really get is these lonely hands reaching out the shadows of the night, hoping that they can connect with one another.

When Mark and Monica connect, there isn't an immediate passion, but they think there's compatibility and there's a wonderful scene. I think this is one of the most marking and telling scenes of the film where they go to this fair and they're writing a Ferris wheel and they're happy. Both of them seem genuinely happy with one another and the commitment that they're making to one another, the moments that they're sharing with one another all is right in the world.

Things seem blissful. And immediately following the sequence, Monica goes home and she's got this rotting body of Robert SHYMANSKY in her house and she dismembers him. It's not because the body is rotting and it smells. It's because she is trying to attain and achieve some aspect of normalcy, a normality in her life that she formerly couldn't have. And with this body in the house, she can't have.

Mark seems great. Every time they have sex, he has to lie still and pretend he's dead. But aside from having a pulse, he fantastic she's actually happy with. And we're allowed to see all those sequences at the fair and on the Ferris wheel. We experience their happiness. It feels like they're working together to give themselves a future. Things are a little scary for Mark.

He's not used to this type of attention. He's not used to what you could say are Monica's fetishes. She likes to take strange bondage photos of him where he appears to be dead. I can understand why that might make somebody slightly uncomfortable. And all of this intimacy is shown to us. And she goes and she dismembers the body and she can't get rid of everything.

She keeps penis and she keeps the head. And you can make that a funny joke on your own. She keeps both heads. This connection between love, death, thought and coming. She keeps both of them. But essentially from that point has washed their hands of this love. You adjust to this and it's it's it's sort of sentimental not sort of it really is sentimental.

It's a grotesque, terrifying scene of this woman cutting up this rotting, postulating body, dark blue, coagulated blood. And it's heartbreaking because you understand what she's doing. She is giving herself to Mark. She's herself up to this point. She's been cheating on Mark the entire time with Rob or I guess you could say she's been cheating on Rob with Mark, but seemingly it would appear that she has decided her future is with Mark and lets go of the past in between.

All of this is a really great scene where Beatrice. Emma. Yes, that's right. Both leads from Nick romantic and Nick romantic to went with their last name, Beatrice Minsky. She had done Wings of Desire with Wim Wenders the year a couple of years maybe before doing Nick Romantic, and she wanted to carry on and do other films and not get just known for doing necromancy.

So she went by Beatrice and when they went to make Nick romantic, too, there's actually a funny story of how you were met. Monica M He asked her to use the last initial to have some similarities. They were all actually at a triple feature, I believe was a Lucio Fulci triple feature at a German theater. The production team York Booth Great Franz Rotten kitchen and company.

And they saw this woman. They were looking to cast the lead in the movie. Your thought? She was perfect and about halfway through the second movie, I think I may be wrong. I think it was house by the cemetery. She got up and decided to leave and York followed her out, ran after her and said, I just got to easy in a movie.

The biggest cliche on the planet, believe it or not, that's how Monica landed the job for this film. And now back to the whole reason why I told the story. Beatrice M She appears as Betty, Rob's girlfriend from the first film that leaves him looking for his body. And here you've got this stellar roller coaster of emotion. You've got Monica deciding that she's going to get rid of Rob's body and that she's committing herself to Mark.

And then this emptiness. So his body's completely gone. She's cutting it up. And now Betty, played by Beatrice M, has come back to retrieve the Infinite for her. The reason she left Rob in the first movie is that he couldn't continue pleasing her anymore. It's almost like the Hemingway book The Sun also Rises throughout that whole story. You've got the lead character who was injured in World War One and he can't have sex anymore.

And he falls in love with somebody whose intimacy is completely through having sex they can't commit and fall in love with the quote unquote hero of the film because they can't fulfill their needs. And that book in so sadly, with the character sitting on a bench talking to the woman saying, Isn't it so pretty to think so is wouldn't it be great if I could just get a raging hard fucking cock and spurt creamy goo all over you?

It's fucking a filthy ending. It sounds so beautiful. These two people thinking about the love life they could have. But it comes down to the point that this motherfucker can't get his car card. That's it. That's the book, Rob. He can't procure the debt anymore. He gets fired from his job. We don't need to go into the whole dissection of the first film because there's an episode available about that already.

So now, in death, Rob can fulfill all of these things for Betty. And it's just a momentary scene in the movie, maybe a minute 50 seconds ad that might even be shorter of Betty coming to the grave, throwing shovel in. And it's in just disgust and angst and hate and such. Whoa. Because you understand the concept of that first film and you've feel the concept of that first film.

And it's just it's disturbing and disgusting and heartbreaking. I mean, just the idea of the desecration. But for these people, for these characters, would it so much really be desecration or would it be the infinite happiness now, for the first time in his entire life, Rob has two people that love him. Unfortunately, they just couldn't love him while he was alive.

There's a duality. There's a disgust that constant Lee sits on your shoulder while you are watching either of these films, and it's yelling at you that you should morally be objective to what you're watching. And you've just got to turn that stupid goddamn voice off and you need to watch it from the middle of the road. You have to take this film truly from the idea that it's a love story and then it becomes so hurtful and so woeful when you when you think about this character that really isn't present in the movie, Rob's just a dead body.

But all the things he wanted, all of his hopes and all of his dreams, just this thing that everybody wants. Everybody in this world wants to be loved. They want to be accepted. You want to be accepted? I want to be accepted. I want to be loved. You want to be loved. It's just universal. And he only achieves it in death, something that I think looms over everyone's head.

Am I good enough? Am I am I going to be loved? Am I going to die alone yet alone? Am I going to die alone and then be fucked by a bunch of people afterward? The concept of the first movie skyrockets after you see the second movie, and when you focus on what is happening, what's going on with these characters yet alone, the film at hand, like Romantic two Return of the Loving Dead.

We're at a point in the movie where you think you are led to believe that Monica and Mark are going to go off into the sunset and things are all going to be okay. Mark has this crazy dream course. Of course he had to have a fucking dream sequence. You have a music sequence in this movie too. You do get it almost feels like a parody of art, though.

Like the first film has a lot of artsy fartsy feeling and artsy fartsy scenes that really drag out. And despite there being a great length and dragging out of scenes in this movie, when you do get the artsy fartsy sequences, they're almost parodies of what you would expect from an art movie of the music sequence. And you've got this baffling dream where Mark's head is just laying in a field and Monica steps on it.

It looks like some deep seated art. I mean, it would have some extravagant, deep meaning to things, but frankly, in my opinion, the dream sequence and the musical interlude are simply too stretch The time of this film, I don't know if, but Great and Company were attempting to get a full two hour production underway. They got fucking really close.

I don't know why there was a push to make the movie so long. It doesn't seem to me to feel like a nearly two hour long movie. Despite so much wandering and so many shots just lingering and not going anywhere. It doesn't it doesn't feel like a burden. It definitely doesn't impose upon itself whatsoever. Each time we do get a new sequence, each time we do linger with a new sequence, I think there's something telling in all of it.

For example, there is a sequence where Monica has a date with Mark, and prior to that she's doing like a club. I believe it's all the actresses that had tried out for Monica and didn't get the role or in the scene might be wrong with that. And this is the seal scene. There were no animals harmed for the making of this movie.

It was acquired footage apparently in the late nineties, early eighties, there was a massive rash of a disease that was killing hundreds and hundreds of seals at a time. And York Boot Great acquired some footage of an autopsy of one of these seals that's placed into the film. It is extremely long. It's like 10 minutes and there's no explanation for the scene.

I've always had a fascination with it and who these people are. I feel you could do a whole movie about this. This group of people that they're watching a movie, but when Monica comes out, she's already dismembered Rob's corpse and she just puts the head on the table. So in one thought, Rob's watching the movie with them because she cares about him, because she loves Rob, she loves the idea of who he was and has respect for that.

And it sounds insane, but he is now a character. He's watching the movie. No one questions this. It's a rotting postulating. It's now become dark, black and rotted. It's just a head sitting on the table. Everyone's having coffee, smoking cigarets and they watch this footage of the seal autopsy. Nobody bats an eyelash. Everyone seems very entertained by it.

And then Mark shows up for the date. He's dressed wonderfully, so excited to be there. He's brought a porno. I think the idea is it's one he's dubbed for her to see, and she has everyone leave and invites Mark to watch the film with her to where he's disgusted. He's just absolutely shocked by what's going on in this film.

He can't watch. He doesn't want to watch animal violence, and he doesn't understand why she's entertained by this at all. And this is very pivotal because this is the deciding point. This is the scene that turns everything you've seen on its head. And it's very simplistic. It seems like something normal because she goes, okay, whatever. There's no anger, there is no yelling.

This is a love story and there is no place for the overwhelming emotion you usually get. There's lots of yelling, there's lots of drama. People can't love each other because they're from different type class. It all goes back to Romeo and Juliet. We can't love each other because of our parents, because of who our families are. We have to die.

We can only love each other in death. And interestingly enough, the movie begins with a quote about something in that kind of facet. Ted Bundy. I want to be a master of life and death, though it's not Ted Bundy. I love that. The opening of this movie, it says Theodore Robert Bundy. It gives them sort of esteemed and of course, that's his real name, but it just gives the esteem to it.

Like Dostoyevsky. Theodore. Robert Bundy. I understand Ernest Hemingway, Not a guy that killed about 200 women by bludgeoning their heads in them and fucking their dead bodies. But Theodore, Robert Bundy, the learned attorney, was he attorney? Did he actually pass the bar? I don't know. I digress. Who gives a fuck? Clearly. Obviously there's a difference between life and death, but to be a master of them both, what would that mean?

What does that mean? I think from that opening scene, giving you that idea, the following movie, everything that we've seen up to this point is a mixture of a master ship of life and death. And that's what Monica is struggling. It's not so much maybe her fascination with death or dying. She's not suicidal. It's the love of the dead now, which she and Necro filed beforehand as she got a mental disorder and obsesses with the dead.

Who knows? Who cares? All we know is that she has fallen so deeply head over heels in love with this person. Robert Shattuck, who is very, very much dead. That's it. That's her motivation. And we're at a scene that is very simplistic. Mark doesn't want to watch a movie, just doesn't like it. Fine. Fair steal autopsy. Got to say, I personally wouldn't be very happy with that either.

But that's just because I've seen that one before. But but for Monica, there's something crucial because she realizes at this point that Mark isn't her eternal love. She has found somebody that she felt was her equal, a little different, somebody that could understand her, somebody that could accept her. That's of course, what Robert SHYMANSKY felt that he had found with Betty in the first film, These two lost souls that have met in the shadows and can equally share their love of the dead together.

But unfortunately, Rob's love was death itself, now dead and loving it. He's just ahead. And a penis. And that's all that Monica can see. That's every time she looks at Mark. The visage that appears upon his face is festering, rotted, decapitated head. And then the two commence the beautiful art of lovemaking. And it's just triumphant. The following scene Spoilers.

man, it's. It's maybe one of the best decapitate. Ocean's out there. You had to see it coming. Coming. You had to, though. Monica takes off. Mark Z cuts it right the fuck off. Just Slap chop chow. There it goes. Blood is everywhere. Her apartment, this beautiful, yellow painted, bright, lit place covered in blood. And she places Rob's head right where his used to be.

And then zip ties the still erect penis of Mark and rides it into the sunset. And all of this is fucking terrible. I mean, what I'm describing to you is just psychotic. This sounds like absolute horror. You could even say pornography, but I just don't agree with that at all. I really feel and I'm not like trying to push this movie.

I don't know, York Boutique, right? I don't know fucking anybody involved in this movie. I just enjoy it. I have spent years watching this movie and coming up with different concepts and different thoughts on it, and I'm sharing all of that more with you. There's no pushing it. I think in these final moments of the film, this blood soaked eroticism is a strange comfort, a unity where this person has finally accepted Monica, who she is and what she is.

She has no shame anymore. She has transformed from the first time we saw her her doubts are now washed away, dripping with blood. Now, of course, none of this is good or positive for Mark, but there is no condemnation. We're looking at any of these characters in a judgmental manner, and it's beautiful. In all of your films, he manages to really portray and show people without any form of judgment.

It's just what you're seeing. It's just this weird, dark, loony adventure and love. I was thinking about it and I thought it was kind of remarkable. And I'm a fan of the person I'm about to talk about, and I don't mean anything negative, and it might be the way I say it that comes off a little negative. I don't mean it that way at all.

Lucky McKee, Great, wonderful artist. I love everything that this person has done. Their big first movie. May When you think about it, it's just not romantic to it's almost the same movie. This outsider that is looking for somebody and assumes they've met somebody that presents themself a certain way comes through this arc of love and rides these high highs and these low lows just to find out that the person isn't how they really represented themselves.

Now, is Mark a faker? Is he faking anything? I don't think so. I don't think any time in necromancy to mark Fakes who he is, he has an unusual job. He's into some unusual things, but he never wants lies about himself. He's just out there reaching for someone, someone that he can connect with. And he happens to meet Monica, who's doing the same thing.

And Lucky McKees may you have somebody that is faking, that is pretending to be much more esoteric and out there than they really are. But essentially the movies are the same. And I really think that Mae is almost a lesser, cheaper version of this now. I think the budget for Mae was much higher than what you have with Nick.

Romantic, too. And this isn't a debate on who's a better director. I think they're both incredibly talented people. But I think when when you look at Mae, when you look at the entire strategy and the construction of that movie, it's the same fucking thing. It's the exact same movie. And I may be wrong, but I'm pretty sure your gut grade is not thanked or credited for anything in that film.

And it's kind of amazing because it's a very lauded film. Horror fans love it. I like it. It's great. It's a really good movie, so don't get things twisted with my statement here. I fucking like Lucky. I like Angela better. So like everything about it, but it's nothing different. It's nothing new. It for some reason is lauded as being so edgy and so different.

This is the type of love story never seen before. Bull fucking shit. Bull fucking shit. Because in 1991 we saw it with Nick Romantic. And I guess this is where some insult can be laid. I think Nick Romantics better film. I think there is a loneliness that is so wonderfully captured by this film and a lot of it comes down to the score I already talked to.

You find folks in the graveyard about Mark Reader, but a lot of the score comes from him. You've got the haunting piano theme from the first movie that reappears and it's driven just so much more fluently. I think it's so much more of a successful display of this love story than the first film. I love. Nick Romantic. I really think it is a pivotal film.

I think it's a bizarre I don't want to say art film and sure, I mean, you can and it's not dissuading the fact that your good, great and company are artists, because I do think that was a big thought in it. I think just it's a simple love story both of them, they're masked with such audacious balls, the things that are represented and shown to you on screen, it takes a lot of balls and a lot of audacity to get this presentable for an audience to come up with these ideas and shove them in their face and almost insult them with stuff.

But even like the musical sequence and stuff, it's almost joking. It's almost a parody of what you're expecting out of one of these long winded German art films, even parody of things like Fassbinder, Rainer Werner, Fassbinder films. At its core, of course, it's an exploitation film, but it's almost exploiting art films. It's exploiting bromance films, all the while giving you the exact same stereotypical things that you receive with an average romance film.

And I think it's terrific. I really think highly of it. I love, let's just say I love Nick romantic too. It's just it's not a different movie. It's just so different from what you you are force fed. You have these forms in these shapes that you have to fit when you are trying to get a production off the ground.

This is what a love story is. This is what a horror movie is. This is what a slasher movie is. This is what an action movie is. And all of these rules and laws are completely disobeyed and pushed aside when it comes to Nick Romantic and Nick romantic. Too much more with Nick. Romantic too. I think it really pushes the boundaries because the film masquerades itself as something that it isn't and it does it several times.

You keep getting these interlude in these scenes that make you think you're watching something else, and then it all comes back down to the hand. We were dealt at the very beginning of the film, and you can never forget that first scene, somebody digging up a body for their own pleasure. As we traverse the galaxy of what this movie is, it's very easy to forget that first scene.

And like I said at the beginning of this episode, you could cut out all of the scenes of violence. You could cut out her digging up the body at the beginning of the film and it would be a very quaint love story. It would be so interesting. The characters themselves and the representations of them are interesting people. And you like Mark, you like Monica.

Despite seeing at the beginning of the film that Monica is a necro file, there's no prejudice, there's no opinion. It's just this blank world that you are interjected into. And of course you can make any form of opinion that you want to you can find it disgusting, horrible. You can find Monica's actions to be the most morally bankrupt and wrong things you've ever seen in your life.

And that's all fair. It's all fair, and none of it's really wrong. But at the end of the movie, it's still a love story. There's almost a happiness that you feel for Monica, that she has finally achieved something most people don't achieve true, absolute, unadulterated, compassionate love, no matter what. She loves Robert with no regard to anything else.

She doesn't care about his past. She doesn't care about his future. He's a rotting, fucking severed head. She loves him so unconditionally. It does not bother her that he is just a severed head. But of course, that's not the final scene of the movie. She doesn't just ride this headless body while it spurts blood into the sunset. no, no.

There's a bump, bump, sad trombone moment, a real piece of humor at the end of the movie where we find Monica to the hospital and we find out she's pregnant. Mamma mia! I mean, there's a real nut buster, pun intended, at the end of this film, and then it just goes straight to fucking black, straight to the credits, straight to a fucking skull.

We just see the credits playing in yellow with a skull and bam, that's it. What a way to fuck with the audience. And it's tremendous. We have been waiting since 1991 for a sequel to No Romantic to I don't know if we ever will get one. So much time has passed from then to now. I mean, boy, howdy.

The the son of the Necro file would be fully grown and the world all around us conceived from the semen of the dead. There's so much that could happen. It would be wonderful to get a third film. I don't think we ever will, but it ends. It's just. It's sort of twisted with the ending. Do you need anything more?

Your imagination should be able to do it for you and just go running wildly through fields of rot and disgust. The end of the movie leaves so much to your imagination. It's perfect. But again, it doesn't ask anything of you. It doesn't impose upon itself. It doesn't force you to sit and dwell in the subject matter. You can take it as an exploitation film.

You can take it as a horror film. You can watch it simply as a movie just for the shock value. You could comparatively something like a Serbian film. You could just watch it for the sake of it. Shock. You don't have to look at the political subtext, which a Serbian film is a deeply political film, just as well as Nick Romantic do is, but you can enjoy it from either side of the fence.

You don't have to acknowledge the love story whatsoever. You can watch a movie just because you want to watch someone's head getting cut off and that's fine. But you do have to ask yourself and your good right ask this to Why do you like horror movies? Don't just tell me it's because of the special effects. Don't just say that.

That's not why you like horror movies. You don't have to feel shame. You don't have to feel like you're being attacked. But there is something in the morbid nature of death and love and life that attracts people. Now, you could just like watching Jason movies because you think he's really neat, but at the same time that motherfuckers slash in people's heads of left and right, there's something about love.

There's something about death. It brings all of us in. You can sit and watch bridges over Madison County or even Saltburn and all of these movies or romance films, and all of them have different facets and levels of romance films. But at the top, the ultimate movie Gun with the Wind, there's one for you. There's some romance. There's a lot of romance in that.

When Harry Met Sally, Pretty Woman, Dirty Dancing, Eternal Sunshine of the Spa Was Mine Titanic, The Notebook. Brokeback Mountain. Romeo and Motherfucking Juliet. The Shape of Water. Blue Lagoon. Breakfast at Tiffany's. An Affair to Remember Bringing Up Baby. All these and more. Nick, Romantic, I dare say, offers a much more sensual and, yes, depraved look into the ideas of what love has to offer.

I mean, how often can you truly say unconditional love is represented so perfectly in a film? Because you can't have an argument against that. Monica Rob So completely and unconditionally there is no better representation on film because there's just no other movie that shows someone committing to love as much as Monica does. Is it positive? I don't know.

I don't think so. Is it negative? I don't know. I don't think so. Is it violence for the sake of violence? Absolutely, and certainly not. There is no fun depiction of violence in this film. There's nothing pleasing about the depiction of violence in this film. Everything we see is graphic and grotesque for a reason, and that is the representation of wrong and right and all of these moralistic things that you yourself can come up with.

On your viewing experience of Nick Romantic The Return of the Loving Dead 1991, Germany directed by your Big Boot. Great. Co-written by Your Boot, Correct and Franz Rotten Kitchen, A Love Story. And that brings us to the end of this episode my whole goal here. Of course, always the goal with death by DVD is to introduce you to movies you may have not seen before, or movies you might have been afraid to see.

Of course, if you've already seen this film, I do hope that it gives you a different perspective. If you hate this movie, if you don't like the work of your boot, great. I do recommend watching it again. Maybe some of the things I said might turn you on some different ideas and prospects. I really think highly of your good great.

I have a deep appreciation for him as an artist despite the fact that I may not always see his name correctly. I love his thought process. I love his perspective on things, and his work constantly intrigues. Me I wish so much that in the modern era that now that we are living in that he was able to make more films.

And of course making films is very, very hard and has progressively gotten harder and harder as the years have gone on since this movie came out in 1991. I love everything that your does, but so deeply wish that we could. Not a sequel, a sequel would be fine. I wouldn't complain. But something new, something deep from the mind.

This Maestro and I do consider your mood great. A master of horror. We have the list, of course, of the masters of horror that are known to all from Mick Garris and the show Masters of Horror. But you've got to move forward. You've got to be progressive. There are so many more than exist in this world. And art that your good great has given us bestowed onto us, I think is irreplaceable.

I think he has found his home permanently in the annals of horror. History is one of the most successful artists when it comes to portraying something different, something new. You even have that energy of somebody like Dario Argento. You look at a film like Suspiria and how shocking and how different and how gorgeous that movie is. You look at Jorge's work there is so much beauty to be found inside of it, though most of these films were shot on Super eight in 16 millimeter, they still exude a deep beauty and I have a very deep appreciation for them.

You don't have to, but I do hope you enjoyed hearing this episode about my appreciation of your food. Great work and this episode about Nick Romantic to Return of the Loving Dead. Such a great tagline, but that's it. The show is over. The history is full and the bottle is empty. Be sure to check out our website. W w w done to death by dvd dot com where episodes are always available.

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It's fun, fun, fun for everyone. And now that the salesman pitch is out of the way, that's it. This is the end of the episode once more. Thank you so much for joining me. Thank you for listening. Thank you for supporting death by DVD. Until next time, Pleasant Tomorrows.