GRINDHOUSE MEMORIES

There is no culture or tradition of Halloween in Germany. In fact, filmmaker Wolfgang Büld said it wasn’t until he was in his 30’s that he ever took part in celebrating the holiday.

“I attended a Halloween party in the early eighties with American friends at a U.S. base in Munich,” Wolfgang said. “We watched ‘Friday the 13th’ part two or three and I was amazed by the shouting and screaming in the cinema. It was totally unbelievable.”

The experience left a huge impression and has surely been an inspiration on his filmmaking. Wolfgang’s film “Angst,” which stars British sensation Fiona Horsey, features a man-eating vagina, a sun burned penis, a love triangle with Siamese twins and is perfect for a rowdy crowd to watch on All Hallows Eve. Wolfgang has said it’s the kind of film he’s wanted to make all through his career, but it took him 25 years to get to that point. Getting the money together to make something like “Angst” just wasn’t a possibility until now.

His career began in London during the late seventies. He started out making documentaries about punk rock. By the mid eighties he was back in Germany making mainstream comedies with big budgets, as well as television content. It wasn’t until the early 2000’s that he started making dark comedy/horror/sexploitation fare. Besides “Angst,” Wolfgang also wrote and directed the Fiona Horsey vehicles “The Chambermaid” and “Twisted Sisters” through his Dark Black Films.

Before his first phase of filmmaking in the late seventies and early eighties – “Punk and Its Aftershocks” (’80), “Women in Rock” (’80), “Bored Teenagers” (’79), “Punk in London” (’77) - Wolfgang studied at the Munich Film School. Though he tried, he says he never got into the “arty-farty, boring crap” fellow students admired. He was drawn to more exploitive stuff.

“So called ‘Halloween movies’ which you enjoy with friends and lots of beer in front of a TV screen I saw on my own in dirty cinemas when they were new,” Wolfgang said. “When the other film students went to the ‘Filmmuseum’ to see Bergman and Tarkovsky I preferred the grindhouses located near central station. I liked ‘Eurotrash’ the most - cheap films with lots of sex and violence that you couldn’t take serious.”

His favorite director was Jess Franco, who has made more than 200 movies, many of which were released under fake names like Clifford Brawn, James Gardner, Cole Polly, Adolf M. Frank, Wolfgang Frank and sixty or so other names.

“Not each one of his films is good,” Wolfgang said. “But I can recommend ‘Eugenie de Sade,’ ‘Barbed Wire Dolls,’ ‘Vampyros Lesbos,’ ‘La comtesse noire’ and ‘Les Demons.’”

“Eugenie de Sade” is a 1970 film based on the writings of Marquis de Sade that tells the twisted erotic story of a young girl, her stepfather and a dark world of sexual perversion and murder. “Vampyros Lesbos” of 1971 and “La comtesse noire” of 1973 are both bloodsucking vampire films. The first being about a female vampire that seduces and kills women, while the latter is about a vampire that lures men to their bloody doom. “Barbed Wire Dolls” is a sleazy women-in-prison feature from 1975 and “Les Demons,” from 1972, is erotic horror involving torture and witchcraft.

Aside from his muse Fiona Horsey, Wolfgang said Soledad Miranda is possibly his favorite Scream Queen. Soledad, often regarded as Franco’s greatest discovery, starred in “Eugenie de Sade,” “Vampyros Lesbos” and many other B-movies, horror films and spaghetti westerns.

Though a fan of Eurotrash, Wolfgang admits nobody does horror quite like the American masters. John Carpenter (“Halloween”), George Romero (“Night of the Living Dead”), Wes Craven (“The Last House on the Left”) and Tobe Hooper (“The Texas Chainsaw Massacre”) are among the filmmakers Wolfgang mentioned. But he also added that Brian de Palma (“Sisters,” “Carrie,” “The Fury”) has been the strongest influence on him.

“The problem, for me, with those old European films is, if you watch them today, they still have some great images, scenes and ideas but the storytelling is rather slow,” Wolfgang said. “American writers and directors did a much better job with structure and suspense.”

- CCF, October 2007