Throughout the German press "Antibodies" was hyped as THE German answer to "Se7en" or "The Silence Of The Lambs".
Now after watching it I can see where that comparison came from - "Antikoerper" steals from those two films so blatantly that it's almost painful to watch. The writer mixed in some genre references and hoped that people might actually think this film was smart. Sadly, it's not...
It starts of quite promising with the capture of our serial killer Gabriel Engel (Engel is German for Angel - Oh, it's so smart!), who paints pictures with his victim's blood - but soon enough the film transforms into Lecter-lite , when a small town cop is sent to interrogate him. There it's never above the quality of an average episode of "Tatort" (which is a German detective TV show). After an overtly long 90 minutes the film reaches it's Se7en-lite stage but doesn't have the guts to go through with it.
The acting is rather wooden, especially on the part of Wotan Wilke Möhring's small town cop Michael Martens. The killer, played by Andre' Hennicke, tries his best to be as menacing as possible but never really convinces. Heinz Hoenigs street-smart big-city cop is purest camp, but sadly not of the good kind.
To make things short - if you want to see a good and new serial killer film, go see "Saw" or wait for the sequel. If you want to see a fun and genuine German killer flick, see "Anatomie". If you want to see something better than this without leaving your home, see any episode of "CSI".
Now after watching it I can see where that comparison came from - "Antikoerper" steals from those two films so blatantly that it's almost painful to watch. The writer mixed in some genre references and hoped that people might actually think this film was smart. Sadly, it's not...
It starts of quite promising with the capture of our serial killer Gabriel Engel (Engel is German for Angel - Oh, it's so smart!), who paints pictures with his victim's blood - but soon enough the film transforms into Lecter-lite , when a small town cop is sent to interrogate him. There it's never above the quality of an average episode of "Tatort" (which is a German detective TV show). After an overtly long 90 minutes the film reaches it's Se7en-lite stage but doesn't have the guts to go through with it.
The acting is rather wooden, especially on the part of Wotan Wilke Möhring's small town cop Michael Martens. The killer, played by Andre' Hennicke, tries his best to be as menacing as possible but never really convinces. Heinz Hoenigs street-smart big-city cop is purest camp, but sadly not of the good kind.
To make things short - if you want to see a good and new serial killer film, go see "Saw" or wait for the sequel. If you want to see a fun and genuine German killer flick, see "Anatomie". If you want to see something better than this without leaving your home, see any episode of "CSI".