Dard Divorce (2007)

While provocation in film is always welcome, especially in these times of moral posturing and virtue signaling, making an “extreme” film can sometimes be a tightrope to walk in that the idea of being “shocking” for the sake of it can wear thin pretty fast. Looking back however at the proliferation of films that got branded with the “extreme” tag that sprung up in the late 90's and early to mid-2000's, a good number of them stand the test of time, no doubt on account of being made by filmmakers with more on there mind that mere shock value. Japan was particularly adept in this field, with Takashi Miike taking on-screen gore and twisted sexuality to new levels in Ichi the Killer (2001) and Visitor Q (2001) and Takashi Ishii pushing Japanese censorship to its limits with Flower and Snake (2004). South Korea's Kim Ki-duk also had audiences gasping thanks to films like The Isle (2000) and Bad Guy (2001). There was also of course the New French Extremity, the pinnacle being Gaspar Noe's Irreversible (2002) which turned the rape-revenge formula on its head by telling the story backwards. Being one of the forefathers of German splatter, Olaf Ittenbach was an extreme filmmaker from the beginning so it's hardly a shock that 2007's Dard Divorce, an exceptionally nasty piece of business, would out-due the rest of the extreme horror competition at the time.

In the midst of a nasty separation from her husband Tim, Nathalie Stein (Martina Ittenbach) is shocked when Tim appears on her front porch appearing to be gravely injured, only to die right in front of her. When Nathalie returns after calling the police however, Tim's body is nowhere to be found. Soon after Nathalie begins to learn some hidden truths about her husband and his involvement with several shady individuals when she is visited by two strangers each telling their own version of what really happened with Tim and a substantial amount of cash. With both believing Nathalie to be hiding information from them regarding Tim, Nathalie finds herself fighting for survival with both attempting to retrieve answers from her utilizing increasingly excruciating methods.

Sadistic even by Ittenbach standards, Dard Divorce (“Dard” being a Persian word for “pain” which is made a plot-point) has the misfortune of being branded with the lamentable label “torture porn” by dismissive reviewers, a massive short-selling of the film. While it's true that Nathalie's tormentors do utilize torturous tactics, the actual scenes of torture aren't what hold the film together. The core of the film is the mystery surrounding Tim's disappearance, if he's actually dead or not and what exactly did he do to cause Nathalie to endure all she does throughout the film. Making things more interesting is the Rashomon (1950) style in which the story is told, with each of Nathalie's torturers telling their own version of the story, each of course being completely different. Although Tim and Nathalie's actual divorce never becomes that big of a narrative concern, Ittenbach nevertheless finds time to address it, even making Nathalie a bit of an alcoholic. Having children getting mixed up in both the divorce as well as the ensuing violence also add a bit more drama to the divorce angle, making Nathlie's struggle all the more harrowing with Martina Ittenbach really being put through hell. Dard Divorce may also have the distinction of being Ittenbach's most viscerally violent film with Ittenbach crafting some of his most grotesque moments including an over-the-top kitchen massacre and a jaw-droppingly innovative death scene on par with the decent into Hell in The Burning Moon (1992) and the SWAT team assault in Garden of Love (2003).

Unfortunately, the film does suffer from a glaring technical flaw late in the film when the details of the central mystery are revealed, the music becomes so loud 99.9% of the dialogue is nearly unintelligible. It doesn't seem to be an issue affecting select copies of the film either as nearly every review available of the film makes note of it. Not that it leaves things open ended, the montage played during the scene makes everything perfectly clear, but to say its distracting would be an understatement. It doesn't seem like Ittenbach has addressed the issue anywhere either, though again the film was very much a bare-bones type of production with Ittenbach shooting a good chuck of the film in his own home in Germany but also later traveling to the US to shoot additional footage, explaining the sometimes awkward clashing of German and American accents. This back-to-basics type of working does give the film a much more grittier feel than some of Ittenbach's previous works like Beyond the Limits (2003) and the previously mentioned Garden of Love, making the film feel more in line with Ittenbach's earlier works like Black Past (1989) and The Burning Moon. Dard Divorce is certainly an acquired taste in an already niche subgenre, but when taking into consideration the horror zeitgeist of the time, it's a prime example of a master demonstrating how to really get extreme.

Chain Reaction (2006)

AKA House of Blood, House of Horrors and Zombie Onslaught

While most directors would be happy to carve out a niche for themselves in various styles or genres, it can also be somewhat of a curse with only one aspect of their directorial skills being highlighted while others are given a cursory notice at best and at worst, ignored completely. For instance, filmmakers like Ruggero Deotado and Umberto Lenzi only being recognized for their cannibal films while their other genre work tends to get sidestepped, or Walerian Borowczyk remembered only for erotica while ignoring his sense of humor and astonishing visual sense. German splatter auteur Olaf Ittenbach also belongs to this group of directors. As one of the forefathers of German splatter, it was inevitable that Ittenbach's claim to fame was going to be his special effects work and understandably so. Ittenbach's gore effects are on another level of quality than most, and his films certainly go into extreme territory so it's a reputation he's earned. One particular quality of Ittenbach's work that tends to get ignored is that, along with his always innovative approach to violence, Ittenbach can always be relied upon for some fairly idiosyncratic storytelling with films like Premutos: The Fallen Angel (1997), Garden of Love (2003) and Dard Divorce (2007) all taking their stories into interesting directions. For Chain Reaction, Ittenbach takes a fairly simple horror concept and steers it into some frankly esoteric and exceptionally bloody realms.

After colliding with a bus transferring prisoners, Dr. Douglas Madsen is taken hostage by the surviving prisoners, demanding that he lead them to the Canadian border and treat the life-threatening injuries of Spence, the brother of Arthur, the de-facto leader of the convicts. While trekking through thick forest, the group happen upon an isolated cabin which they invade for shelter, discovering a strange, devoutly religious familial unit speaking in old-tyme language. After declaring the cabin theirs and isolating the family, the group soon discovers the true, blood-thirsty and demonic nature of their hosts.    

Chain Reaction is perhaps the quintessential film when making the case for Ittenbach being far from a one-note filmmaker. Granted, the concept of escaped convicts discovering a cabin inhabited by demons isn't the most novel of set-ups, and in the hands of nearly any other director would have probably been approached in a pretty straightforward fashion. Ittenbach however takes an entirely different approach right from the very beginning, opening with a damn near Roegian montage that makes more sense as Ittenbach unfolds this elliptical and weirdly emotional narrative that seemingly takes place in a parallel world where deja-vu is a reoccurring, pre-determined fate. Having the cabin family speak in bizarre old-tyme tongue greatly adds to this slightly alien feel, and Ittenbach conjures up dense atmosphere around the cabin and its surroundings. While Ittenbach could have very well made a good movie simply utilizing the basic escaped convicts vs. demons story, he does something fascinating in the middle of the film by repeating the scenario a second time with a different set of cons and making Dr. Madsen a prisoner. Because of Madsen, the second go around twists some other things as well, adding to an already loaded story a connection of sorts, perhaps past-life, between Madsen and the most “human” of the demonic family, Alice, played by Ittenbach's then wife Martina. Needless to say, the films big gore centerpieces are flawless with Ittenbach once again inventing highly unique ways of dismembering the human form and actually builds tension between the major bloodletting sequences.

The film is comprised of a host of Ittenbach regulars with Christopher Kriesa making his third is appearance for Ittenbach following Legion of the Dead (2001) and Beyond the Limits (2003). Also making their third Ittenbach film are James Matthews-Pyecka and Daryl Jackson, both also in Beyond the Limits and Garden of Love and of course Martina Ittenbach would later feature in Dard Divorce and Legend of Hell (2012) amongst others. Unfortunately, like so many of Ittenbach's films, Chain Reaction has suffered on the home video front thanks to cut releases with its most easily variable North American DVD release under the “House of Blood” title being cut, begging the question of why even bother release an Ittenbach film in the first place if all the gore effects weren't intact? Much like Garden of Love, the film has also had the misfortune of being released under the wildly inappropriate alternate of “Zombie Onslaught” complete with equally misrepresentative cover art. There is however a very good Polish DVD containing the complete version of the film and is pretty easy to track down making it a good buying option and it is a more than worthy purchase. Chain Reaction is first and foremost a splatter film, but the unorthodox storytelling and other various oddities Ittenbach mixes in make the film one of Ittenbach's more curious and one of the more interesting films in contemporary horror.