Black Past (1989)

Although unfortunately some of the fanfare tends to come from the cult of irony, the more light shone on shot-on-video movies the better as such works represent an important part in evolution of filmmaking. It's been documented countless times, but the fact remains that not only did the video revolution make it easier for everyone to watch films in their own homes, but the accessibility of video cameras made it easier to make their own films. Of course, given that the majority of SOV movies were amateur productions the quality of the majority of SOV movies can be rather shoddy, yet despite the quality, the one trait all SOV films had was sincerity. That combined with the amateur effect made the movies feel all the more personal and gave the SOV aesthetic an odd mystique. While a good chunk of the biggest SOV titles like Boardinghouse (1982), Sledgehammer (1983), Black Devil Doll from Hell (1984) and Woodchipper Massacre (1988) were American productions, Europe had its own movement, the leader of which was Germany's Olaf Ittenbach. Ittenbach quickly gained notoriety among underground horror fans due to the extreme gore quotient of his films, chief among them the infamous The Burning Moon (1992) and later Premutos: The Fallen Angel (1997) but it was Ittenbach's first feature Black Past that put his name on the map, a crucial title for both splatter horror and SOV films.

After moving into a new house with his father and two nagging sisters, Thommy (Ittenbach), an aimless and angsty teenager discovers a mirror chained up in a box in the attic that belonged to the previous owner of the house who went on a murderous rampage. Thommy hangs the mirror in his room only to discover the sinister forces it houses when his girlfriend Petra walks into oncoming traffic after being put into a daze by the mirror. After reading the diary he found with the mirror, Thommy finds himself under the mirror's spell, transforming him into deadly demonic entity.

A labor of love in every sense of the term with Ittenbach writing, directing, acting, co-producing and doing the effects, Black Past stands head and shoulders above most shot-on-video features in every department. What's more, Ittenbach's previous film work consisted of shorts which he freely admits were excuses for showcases his effects work and like most SOV flicks, Black Past was shot mostly on weekends. Although the cursed house set-up is a familiar one, Ittenbach keeps things fresh and even takes the film into territories that most SOV features would never attempt to go. There is a sincere attempt at drama throughout the entire film revolving around Thommy and his constant feuding with his father and sisters. Despite Thommy's deadbeat nature, Ittenbach himself has a certain charm about him and his family's constant harping on him about everything does make his anger seem a bit more justified. Even the moments that are an obvious attempt at padding out the run time, one of the most common occurrences during SOV movies, like scenes of Thommy wandering aimlessly in stores have an endearing factor to them because of Ittenbach's emphasis on giving the film a semblance of emotion. Obviously due to the format the film does run into some of the technical issues inherent in all video movies, but again Ittenbach manages to minimize them and thanks to his ingenuity even gives moments of the film as genuine sense of style and atmosphere, particularly during the third act when the film becomes a massive bloodbath.

Being an Ittenbach film, the biggest selling point is of course going to be the gore with all the effects created by Ittenbach himself. What may surprise many given Ittenbach's reputation is how he takes his time with it. There are splashes of violence in the opening of the film and sprinkled throughout in the form of hallucination and dream scenes but Ittenbach saves the big showcase for the films previously mentioned third act which consists of one big gore set piece after another. Not only is the gore plentiful (and rather mean spirited with one particularly savage bit involving one of Thommy's sisters) but more importantly, it's innovative with Ittenbach coming up with some pretty astonishing and original ways of filling the screen with as much blood as possible. It's also crucial to point out that the effects were 100% practical which, given the resources Ittenbach was working with, make them all the more admirable. Perhaps the most impressive would be Thommy's transformation into his fully demonic form, though there is a showstopping hallucination/dream that Ittenbach would improve upon with the infamous Hell segment in his follow-up film The Burning Moon, his most well known work. Ittenbach's effects skills would eventually find him work on other films, but it all began with Black Past, a remarkably assured film for a homegrown debut and really an important entry in the German horror canon.