Angst

The film describes the first (and last) 24 hours of a released criminal. As soon as he is free, the detainee is already looking for the next victims. The noise of a coffee bar near the prison and the fear of being noticed cause him to give up the action even if two girls attract him. A taxi driver is saved by reacting violently and unloading him in the countryside. When he finds an open gate, the criminal enters an house garden and then goes into the house, hoping to find the desired victims. As night falls, he discovers a young boy, wheelchair-bound, while his sister and mother are returning home. In the grip of a homicidal raptus he kills the three people. The next day, after washing up, he puts the corpses in the family car and leaves; at an intersection he has an accident and flees with the car returning to the same cafe the day before, populated by the same people. While he is already thinking about how to kill new victims, the police arrive and the murderer is arrested.

In real life the protagonist of the film has spent more than half of its existence behind bars. Thefts, armed robberies and other crimes carried out since adolescence were "substitutes for this uncontrollable urge to torture people" (as he confessed later). His family condition had been very unstable. As his mother had abandoned, he was raised by his grandmother; being an illegitimate child, he was considered a disgrace for the family. He was forced to enter a seminar to become a priest and to cancel the sin. At the age of 14 he was seduced by a masochist, thus discovering his own sadistic tendencies. To feel completely grown up, he left his mother's house. When she tried to stop him he tried to kill her without success. After spending four four years in prison, things did not improved. He killed an elderly lady, but was caught by her friends and, after a brief escape, he was arrested and sentenced to ten years in prison. In this period he spent his time planning his next murder, the perfect one.
The film tells the story of a sadist who killed people. This is a rather rare case, but when it happens it seems to fill a need for the mass media. This kind of "beasts" generally become famous. This specific case had a great echo in the local press. The reasons for this phenomenon does not lie in simple sensationalism, but has deeper roots. "Restore the death penalty", "Things like this never happened under Hitler", "Hang it", "Castrate him" ... the population reacts wildly. When security and order are threatened, aggression is the easiest response. A possible psychological explanation is that the sexual psychopaths are responsible for hiding (and banning) the impulses that dwell in each of us. The stronger the demand for punishment for these "monsters", the greater is the need to punish (hoping to subjugate) the forbidden desires of each of us. Freudian transfer, penitence for uncontrollable fantasies. And who hasn’t got any? "Sexual psychopaths are scapegoats, thrown into hell so as to exorcise the forbidden, on the one hand there is identification with the criminal and even a secret satisfaction, on the other there is identification with the collective 'super ego' to prevents such things from happening ". (Schorsch e Becker, Angst. Lust, Zerstörung, 1977).. Sexual psychopaths have the function of a valve. Jack the Ripper, Rudolf Höss and his barbarism in Auschwitz all have a purpose. The media are almost grateful of their existence. Society needs its own psychopaths.

Director: Gerard Kargl.
Screenplay: Gerard Kargl, Zbigniew Rybczyrtski.
Fotografia (colore): Zbigniew Rybczyrtski.
Music: Klaus Schulze.
Editor: Zbigniew Rybczyrtski.
Cast: Erwin Leder, Silvia Rabenreither, Edith Rosset, Rudolf Götz.
Production company: Gerard Kargl Filmproduktionges. m.b.H. Pochlgasse 16/3 A 1190 Wien.