Jörg Buttgereit says he wanted revenge. He'd been rejected from film school when friend Mafred Jelinski offered to bankroll the young man's first feature, and two laborious years later Nekromantik (1987, 71 minutes) was excreted. It's vile. Disgusting. Disturbing. And intentionally so. Revulsion is its sole purpose. And as a testament to Jörg's success, his film has been censored or banned in most every country it ever managed to play. Such notoriety continues to ferment this shock fest's world-wide cult status. That'll show them stuffed shirts at film school, eh?

The movie: Like many passed down through the ages, this is a story of young love. Robert (Daktari Lorenz) is a skinny, ineffectual employee of Joe's Streetcleaning Agency. It's a gruesome job scraping up what's left of folks after car accidents, but Robbie loves his work. In fact, he takes it home with him. There in his dingy apartment are shelves lined with mason jars filled with human remains. He shares this flat with his gorgeous girlfriend Betty (Monica M.) who coos with delight upon each addition to their macabre menagerie. Their blood lust reaches critical mass when Rob totes home a rotting body he'd helped fish out of the drink. The young lovers paw and caress the slimy unfortunate until they work themselves into a fevered depravity that climaxes about the same time Betty does atop the cadaver. If that's not enough to make you projectile puke your popcorn, don't worry, it gets worse (or better if you're Jeffrey Dahmer). There's some charming footage of a bunny rabbit having its throat slit while it literally kicks off. And the autoerotic-harikari scene rivals Divine's poop-gobbling finale in Pink Flamingos for the all-time grossout crown.

Notables: Four breasts. Eight corpses. Gratuitous urination. Corpse stroking. Erupting wangdoodle. Apple picking. One yard gnome. Blood bath. Demented diddling. Head in a box. Pickled people parts. Gratuitous dream sequence. Shovel decapitation. Reverse footage.

Quotables: No sprechen sie Deutsche.

Time codes: Music credit to John Boy Walton (4:03). Actual footage of man whizzing (7:30). Live rabbit butchered on screen (15:20). It's called necrophilia, and it's icky (29:35). Cat in a sack goes splat (42:10). Suicide with a happy ending (1:05:50).

Audio/Video: Clean fullframe transfer from original Super 8 elements. German mono track (with optional English subtitles).

Extras: Uncut/Unrated version. English commentary by the director and co-author Franz Rodenkirchen, in which they joke about Jörg's cameo in the film and its crude effects. An early short film by Buttgereit called Horror Heaven. Two featurettes. More than 100 production stills. Theatrical trailers for Nekromantik, Nekromantik II: Return of the Loving Dead, Der Todesking and Schramm. Liner notes by the filmmaker and author David Kerekes.

Final thought: Infamous for a reason. Proceed with caution and an empty stomach. Recommended.