Finally, a movie FOR serial killers. Schramm (1994, 65 minutes) doesn't bother itself with the usual trappings of the genre. There's no vigilant lawmen fast on his heels. No murder-by-numbers documentation of his victims. Just naked insanity. Literally. A big, fat, naked, insane guy who's just two brain cells away from needing a drool cup. The film comes from the twisted mind of a fella Germans just love to BAN named Jörg Buttgereit. Jörg got famous with a couple flicks CineSchlockers will swear they haven't seen called Nekromantik (1987) and Nekromantik II: Return of the Loving Dead (1989) about folks who like to play Twister with rotting corpses in their birthday suits. An auteur indeed.

The movie: [Bloop! Bloop! Bloop!] CineSchlock-O-Rama has issued a PENIS IN PERIL ALERT: Viewers should be painfully aware that midway through the flick doughy Mr. Schramm strips nekkid, places his wangdoodle on a wooden chair, and hammers a NAIL through it!!! Not once, but THREE times!!! That said, there's really not a whole lot of serial killing going on. Instead, we delve into the everyday madness that ultimately drives Schramm (Florian Koerner von Gustorf) to do the heinous things he does. Chiefly, he's in love with the willowy prostitute next door (Monika M.) who thinks of him like a dopy brother -- with a car. He's wholly inept at expressing himself, so he laces her nightcap with pills and takes Polaroids of her in her undies, which is A LOT more pleasant than what he does to gals he's not as sweet on. He also suffers from super-duper body dysmorphia, but instead of obsessing about his waistline, Schramm has gruesome hallucinations of waking to find his leg hacked away, or believing he can inspect his brain by merely parting his forehead with his fingertips. This haphazard assemblage of randomly ordered scenes chart the cluttered mind of the "Lipstick Killer" and curiously elicit a certain amount of pity for the guy. That is when one's not retching.

Notables: Five breasts. Five corpses. Slow mo. Reverse footage. Fast mo. Severed leg. Heavy breathing. Gratuitous dance sequence. Eyeball scooping. Masturbation with happy ending. Vagina monster. Inflate-a-date diddling. Amateur photography. Wild taxi cab driving.

Quotables: No sprechen sie Deutsche.

Time codes: German Jehovah's Witnesses (6:35). Schramm engages in a graphic act with an anatomically-correct pool toy (18:12). THAT scene (33:00).

Audio/Video: Clean fullframe transfer from the original 16mm B&W negative. German stereo remix or original mono (with optional English subtitles).

Extras: Two English audio commentaries: one by the director and partner Franz Rodenkirchen and another track by actors Florian Koerner von Gustorf and Monika M. A 35-minute "Making of" with extensive behind-the-scenes footage, including how they were able to achieve some of the camera work. Early Super-8 short films by Buttgereit (Mein Papi, Captain Berlin) and a music video he did for Mutter's "Die Neue Zeit" (about 30 minutes in all). Massive production photo gallery of more than 100 images. Theatrical trailers for Nekromantik, Nekromantik 2, Der Todesking and this film. Motion video menus with audio. Printed insert features letters from the director and author David Kerekes who wrote Sex Murder Art: The Films of Jörg Buttgereit.

Final thought: The world's most artfully constructed pseudo-snuff film with the raw sexual perversion of a merchant marine's Saigon shore leave. Recommended.