The Death King

1990 [GERMAN]

Drama / Horror

4
Rotten Tomatoes Critics - Rotten 69%
Rotten Tomatoes Audience - Upright 69% · 500 ratings
IMDb Rating 6.3/10 10 3156 3.2K

depression suicide skeleton life and death sadism suffocation

Plot summary

Seven episodes, each taking place on a different day of the week, on the theme of suicide and violent death.

Director

Jörg Buttgereit Photo
Jörg Buttgereit

Top cast

Bela B. Photo
Bela B. as Singer
Jörg Buttgereit Photo
Jörg Buttgereit as Torture Victim
Harald Lundt Photo
Harald Lundt
Franz Rodenkirchen Photo
Franz Rodenkirchen as Passer-by
720p.BluRay 1080p.BluRay
692.91 MB
1280*900
German 2.0
NR
Subtitles de  
23.976 fps
1 hr 15 min
Seeds ...
1.26 GB
1536*1080
German 2.0
NR
Subtitles de  
23.976 fps
1 hr 15 min
Seeds 7

Movie Reviews

Reviewed by petermckn 6 / 10

Suicide sucks

I am initially underwhelmed by Der Todesking (The Death King). So we are presented with 7 stories, one for each day of the week. Every story is depicting suicide, with cuts of a slowly decaying corpse(made from pigs guts and strawberry pudding) in between. So what we basically get is an anti-suicide movie made on a shoe- string budget it does work quite well for what its trying to achieve with the budget they had. However, Its a bit of a hit and miss with some of the stories some of the scenes tend to drag on and one day which was Thursday was just shots of the bridge in Germany called the suicide bridge. The director himself said that its very hard to capture what he had in his head due to the budget restraints. We also have a sneaky homage to the Ilsa films which are banned in Germany and a nice shootout at a cinema. The decomposition of the corpse looks great and its nice to watch you'd almost think it was real. The same skeleton was used from necromantic and the scene was shot at 1 frame per hour. As for sound, they repeat a rather depressing song over and over but it doesn't really get annoying. check it out if you're a film student or interested in the themes presented here but i can't recommend it personally.
Reviewed by Jonny_Numb 6 / 10

powerfully oppressive

Only a handful of horror directors are true craftsmen when it comes to constructing fear out of celluloid, and Jorg Buttgereit is one of them. "Der Todesking" is an early, virtually plot less effort from the German auteur that follows a week in the life of a deadly chain letter. The film possesses a stream-of-consciousness style which strings together a series of random, nightmarish images (the sped-up decomposition of a corpse; castration; suicide) that rely on a coldly realistic tone to deliver chills. Additionally, the musical score is as hauntingly effective as anything Goblin composed for Dario Argento. Be warned, however--depending on your mood, "Der Todesking" might plunge you into a deep depression.
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