"Angst" is an Austrian 32-year-old movie written and directed by Gerald Kargl. It is easily his most known effort as he has not been really prolific. His body of work on IMDb is almost empty, but I read that he directed many television ads as well. The same cannot be said about the Polish co-writer Rybczynski, who won an Oscar in the animated short film category the very same year "Angst" was released. This film runs for no longer than 75 minutes, but is very intense and at times tough to watch. A man with a history of violence (even towards his own mother and sister) gets released out of prison after 10 years and immediately plans his next massacre. He ends up at a rich family's house, where he kills everybody. If you are more interested in the psychological aspect of this movie and prefer to skip the murders, you can simply omit minutes 30-45 as this is where the trio gets killed. He has fantasies about young women at a café and about a taxi driver as well, but does not succeed there already. Anyway, he seems to have a pretty misogynist attitude, probably because of bad experiences with his female relatives.
The lead character is played by Erwin Leder, an actor you may also have come across in "Das Boot" or "Schindler's List". While we watch him, we constantly hear the thought of what is going on in his head, how he makes parallels between his victims (or even creatures like swans) and his family members or ex-girlfriends. The rest of the cast is fairly unknown. Many of them have never appeared in a film before or after this. If you like horror films with simple premises or just enjoy slashers where a sadist kills many people, this is probably exactly your cup of tea. However, I should probably not say slasher as there is really not much blood in here except when he kills the daughter of the family. There is also no really explicit agony, suffering or screaming. The daughter, for example, in her last moments, still thinks about her mother's illness. After he killed the trio, the film gets a bit worse, mostly because his inner monologues get less too and he is not telling us that much anymore why he became who he is. The ending, however, is pretty good again at the café and outside when the cops come and catch him. All in all, I recommend it. It is a pretty good character study of a disturbed sadist. But it is certainly not for the easily offended.
The lead character is played by Erwin Leder, an actor you may also have come across in "Das Boot" or "Schindler's List". While we watch him, we constantly hear the thought of what is going on in his head, how he makes parallels between his victims (or even creatures like swans) and his family members or ex-girlfriends. The rest of the cast is fairly unknown. Many of them have never appeared in a film before or after this. If you like horror films with simple premises or just enjoy slashers where a sadist kills many people, this is probably exactly your cup of tea. However, I should probably not say slasher as there is really not much blood in here except when he kills the daughter of the family. There is also no really explicit agony, suffering or screaming. The daughter, for example, in her last moments, still thinks about her mother's illness. After he killed the trio, the film gets a bit worse, mostly because his inner monologues get less too and he is not telling us that much anymore why he became who he is. The ending, however, is pretty good again at the café and outside when the cops come and catch him. All in all, I recommend it. It is a pretty good character study of a disturbed sadist. But it is certainly not for the easily offended.