Hippocampus M 21th
| Title: | Hippocampus M 21th |
| Director: | Alexander Fennert |
| Writer(s): | Alexander Fennert & Lucious Strauch |
| Cast: | Stephanie Holzmaier, Goldie, Karl Dexter, Nikol Brown, Hans Goltz…. |
| Genre(s): | Arthouse Horror |
| Release Date: | 2015 |
The word “Hippocampus” was inspired by the hippocampus, a part of the brain located in the temporal lobe, which plays a key role in the learning process and in the formation of new memories about events lived. It is the hippocampus, which connects all the different parts of an experience to form an episodic memory. The letter M is a tribute to “M – The Monster of Dusseldorf” the film by Fritz Lang inspired crimes committed in Germany in the Twenties. The number “21th” references the period in which the film is set, the twenty-first century: the monsters of today.
Lucio Massa
Discovered Hippocampus M 21th here at Extreme Horror Cinema thanks to I_Drink_Your_Blood http://extremehorrorcinema.com/index.php?topic=3236.msg41829;topicseen#new
Hippocampus M 21th is the debut of German filmmaker and writer Alexander Fennert. Co-writer is Lucious Strauch.
Originally Alexander was a ghostwriter for a number of indie productions. Conception arose at Cannes between Mr Fennert and the Italian director behind the remake of Violent Shit, Luigi Pastore..
Interestingly enough, the Violent Shit remake will be produced through Alexander Fennert’s LPLM Produktion.
Hippocampus M 21th is meant to be the starting point of a trilogy of films on man’s deepest dark perversions.
Before I get started into the meat of this review I would first like to thank producer Lucio Massa for replying to my request at http://www.hippocampusm21th.com for the link to the Hippocampus M 21th online screener. It is very much appreciated and I am glad I took the jump and applied for it!
My insight into Hippocampus M 21th…
…is a journey through the debaucheries desires of the mind of humankind. Six experiences of seeking desires beyond the norm, of gaining sexual arousal through dynamics beyond the norm.
Interspersed with these tales of sexual expressions plays a cycle of different people going through their own experiences of existence! Of the man who eats from the garbage can, the more seemingly mundane, to a drug addict injecting to the very last which I won’t go into here.
All of this told through experience and not one word spoken!
Each seemingly depraved tale, depending on the viewers perspective naturally, has its own classical soundtrack. Rossini, Mozart, Bach, Ravel, Chopin, Beethoven and Tchaikovsky act as a contrast to the deviate experience on screen.
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Apartment 37413
Players
Stephanie Holzmaier
Goldie
Karl Dexter
LA GAZZA LADRA
Gioachino Rossini
GORE SICKNESS INSANITY FILTH DEPRAVITY
Theme: Sitophilia / Incest
Sitophilia is the sexual arousal from food.
Incest is the sexual intercourse between members of the same family.
A banquette of raw offal is the main course with a desert of filth, bondage and incest to cap it off. From the DVD release it states that this family suffers from a disorder of needing to consume human organs.
I feel this would be more effective if the viewer owned the DVD. Reading the description on the back. Of how this is a threesome from the same family.
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Apartment 28513
Players
Nikol Brown
Hans Goltz
REQUIEM IN D MINOR
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
GORE SICKNESS INSANITY FILTH DEPRAVITY
Theme: Pediophobia / Chelidolagnia
Pediophobia is the fear of dolls.
Chelidolagnia is the sexual pleasure of despising your partner.
A new doll arrives and finds out that greed doesn’t pay. Her client dishes out his way of dealing with his fear of dolls onto her with a wonderfully sick climax with includes a carving knife…!
Loved the visions of the dolls and what they man does with them. Then naturally his living doll arrives and he does something similar to her after indulging her with enough money to get her tied up.
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Apartment 13396
Players
Mark Hoffman
Klarika Smalrich
CELLO SUITE No. 1 IN G MAJOR BWV1007
Johann Sebastian Bach
GORE SICKNESS INSANITY FILTH DEPRAVITY
Theme: Coprophilia / Klismaphilia
Coprophilia is an obsession with feces.
Klismaphilia is the use of enemas for sexual stimulation.
At first I thought this was going to play out as the man bleeds to death and while he is dying they fuck. But no! Blood is being collected for more artistic purposes. Then there is the scat which adds to the effect of filth and debauchery. Though like most scat isn’t a turn on I found appeal with the filth.
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Apartment 1932301
Player
Erika Kramer
BOLERO
Maurice Ravel
GORE SICKNESS INSANITY FILTH DEPRAVITY
Theme: Formicophilia
Formicophilia is the fetish of having insects crawl over the person’s genitals.
A woman touches herself all over with a feather. Then she goes into a bath and pours cantor of creepy crawlies all over herself. Mainly insects that you would imagine scavenging through the bodies of the dead; worms and cockroaches…big arse cockroaches! Erika really appears to be enjoying herself here thus makes it all work!
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Apartment 121197
Players
Veilca Franz
Mallory Holloway
Hugo Von Strasse
NOCTURNE No.20 in C-sharp minor
Fryderyk Chopin
SONATA, Op.27 n.2
Ludwig Van Beethoven
GORE SICKNESS INSANITY FILTH DEPRAVITY
Theme: Necrophilia
Necrophilia is sexual gratification with a corpse.
A woman pays a visit to a fortune teller who reads her cards. On leaving the fortune teller goes into another room and cuts herself. Is this suicide or something else?
No, it is to nourish the rotten corpse of her long dead lover. Fondling and sucking on the dildo that replaces the real one that had rotten off at some point she finally straddles him.
Make-up and special effects are done by Annette Braüner. This arc of the experience that is Hippocampus M 21th showcases how well her skills are! Our fortuneteller’s late lover/husband looks organic and dead!
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Apartment 7428M
Player
Markus Kerrill
PIANO CONCERT No.1 in B-flat minor, Op.23
Pyotrt Ilyich Tchaikovsky
GORE SICKNESS INSANITY FILTH DEPRAVITY
Theme: Globophobia / Coulrophobia
Globophobia is the intense fear of balloons.
Coulrophobia is the fear of clowns.
This man goes to a sex shop to pick up a dildo and some porn magazines. He gets home and is jerking off with this massive hard-on. Out of no-where this balloon with a smilie face comes into the room. We discover the man is jerking of the dildo which was in his pants. Leaving the room the balloon covers the view to his face. When it is removed there is a clown faced man. Re-entering the room there are gallons everywhere. Grabbing a knife he stabs at them all.
Experiencing this I took it that the man was a serial killer and stabbing the balloons was a metaphor for killing people. Again, going back to the DVD description, it states that the man is an erotomaniac obsessed with this clown.
I loved this guy, he was bat shit insane!
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From what I gathered from the official website Hippocampus 21th was filmed in a very unorthodox style. Pretty much just like it’s visual and sonic experiences. Alexander did not direct each scenario face to face. Each group was given webcams and for the most part never even meet with him. This works quite well! I feel this is because for the most part these people actually had these, or similar, fetishes so, naturally, it was easy to participate in. Obviously the scenario of Apartment 28513 and Apartment 121197 would be a bit different, considering the subject matter of both. But then I would say that each in a way worked due to similar fetishes that were transversed to the ones featured.
Hippocampus 21th‘s classical soundtrack of Rossini, Mozart, Bach, Ravel, Chopin, Beethoven and Tchaikovsky works wonderfully. It creates this experience of being a part of the happenings from the perspective of each fetishist. They do not see what they do as deviate behaviour, it is what they do as an aspect of passion and living. Of dealing with and experiencing a different side of life.
Alexander Fennert provides us with the experience of man’s deep dark desires within Hippocampus M 21th! Of what exists deep within our minds, forbidden pleasures that dwell within, and with some people, get acted out. I was under the impression from at least some of the scenes that he got people with these fetishes to play the roles. With this as a beginning the rest of the trilogy should promise to be worthy to look forwards to.
Hippocampus M 21th can be rented or purchase as a VOD at Vimeo https://vimeo.com/ondemand/29156
If you are like me and prefer the physical copy the DVD can be obtained here http://www.hippocampusm21th.com/store-1.html
Lastly, if you have a Face Book account, be sure to visit https://www.facebook.com/pages/Hippocampus-M-21th/1484957611785441 and show support to Underground / Indie filmmaking by hitting the like!
