Indie film at its most base. I really dug the whole segmented story line. However, the very last scene could shock the fur off a kitten. By then the drugs were kicking in anyway. This is the most horrific portrayal of Hell I have EVER seen. And I have seen a lot. The leg-ripping sequence alone is worth two quarts of Miller High Life. I feel sorry for the butcher shop that sponsored this film. He must have went broke. Was there a moral? Maybe. Perhaps we should all watch what we say to one another...blah blah blah. Or maybe we should drink from cans whilst watching a truly disturbing horror film because bottles spill when you bolt out of your chair after seeing a man eat his own eyeball.
33 Reviews
Nasty - nasty - nasty
exorcist1998-14 March 2008
I have given this 9 out of 10 for purely the gore effects alone. The rest of the film is weak but for all the gore hounds out (myself included) it is a serious assault on the senses so don't watch this with your female partner as you will be single by the end of the film as most of the serious stuff is at the end.
Believe me the effects are very very good, so good in fact that a rumour existed that this was not special effects ! but if you can find it (almost impossible here in the UK) then make up your own mind but be warned its hard viewing.
I have only seen it in the original German language and I am not sure if it has even got a DVD release but I may be wrong (I am searching now).
Believe me the effects are very very good, so good in fact that a rumour existed that this was not special effects ! but if you can find it (almost impossible here in the UK) then make up your own mind but be warned its hard viewing.
I have only seen it in the original German language and I am not sure if it has even got a DVD release but I may be wrong (I am searching now).
Marks the time when Lucio Fulcis gore-flicks started to look like Oscar contenders
t_atzmueller1 February 2013
Right, if you're not a complete gore-hound, you might well stop reading now and click that little "x" on the top-right-side of your screen.
If you compare Horror-flicks like "The Exorcist" or "Halloween" to fine French cuisine, you might liken the gore- and splatter-fests of Lucio Fulci and Umberto Lenzi to plain working-class food. In that case you'll view the works of Olaf Ittenbach to the cheapest, greasiest burger you've ever put into your mouth. Or, in the case of you being German, "Curry-Wurst". Not the fresh variation, mind you, but rather yesterday's leftover sausage, re-heated.
"The Burning Moon" can be considered the grandfather of the bottom-of-the-barrel, Z-grade horror-flicks from Germany (in other words: trash that is produced by people like Andreas Bethmann, Oliver Krekel or Marc Vorlander). In other words: expect nothing. Acting that resemble anything in the classical sense? Forget it. A story with a twist, or more depth than a 3rd graders high school-play? Not even close. Any technical talent or finesse? Zilch. But all those lacks are compensated for with gore, gore and more gore. It seems that the few measly bucks that went into the production went solely into the special effects, which consist of a few lackluster murder and torture scenes and the film's highlight, a torture scene in hell which lasts an estimate 20 minutes.
If you're familiar with the genre, you know what to expect: red food-colour mixed with hot-chocolate powder and egg-yolk (for consistencies sake), buckets full of them and generously dumped over the "actors".
The reason for giving this piece any points at all is the fact that back in 1997 "The Burning Moon" was more or less a "first"; a curiosity rather than a real film. Nowadays these kinds of products have become rampant, especially in Germany. That is no longer the case and Orson Wells prophecy that "everybody wants to make movies and my stupid brother too" has fulfilled itself; an army of "stupid brothers", incompetent and unable to the last one (see above mentioned names). Makes you long for the days when producing films meant that you needed a budget, sponsors, producers and an able team technicians and artists.
So, if you want to make a movie, hey, why waste your time with film-school or talent? Assemble a crew of friends and neighbours, invest 100 bucks in a digital camera, find yourself a back-lot or piece of forest where filming is free, and raid the kitchen for special-effects items. Then write yourself a couple of glowing reviews on IMDb and applaud yourself for being "a real film-maker". Again, for above mentioned "film-makers", including director Olaf Ittenbach, this hasn't only become employment but a sport and a virtual way of life.
4/10 points – one for being a first, one for the ambition, one for the "hell"-scene and one for the general nihilistic, morbid and misanthropic aura that surrounds the stories.
If you compare Horror-flicks like "The Exorcist" or "Halloween" to fine French cuisine, you might liken the gore- and splatter-fests of Lucio Fulci and Umberto Lenzi to plain working-class food. In that case you'll view the works of Olaf Ittenbach to the cheapest, greasiest burger you've ever put into your mouth. Or, in the case of you being German, "Curry-Wurst". Not the fresh variation, mind you, but rather yesterday's leftover sausage, re-heated.
"The Burning Moon" can be considered the grandfather of the bottom-of-the-barrel, Z-grade horror-flicks from Germany (in other words: trash that is produced by people like Andreas Bethmann, Oliver Krekel or Marc Vorlander). In other words: expect nothing. Acting that resemble anything in the classical sense? Forget it. A story with a twist, or more depth than a 3rd graders high school-play? Not even close. Any technical talent or finesse? Zilch. But all those lacks are compensated for with gore, gore and more gore. It seems that the few measly bucks that went into the production went solely into the special effects, which consist of a few lackluster murder and torture scenes and the film's highlight, a torture scene in hell which lasts an estimate 20 minutes.
If you're familiar with the genre, you know what to expect: red food-colour mixed with hot-chocolate powder and egg-yolk (for consistencies sake), buckets full of them and generously dumped over the "actors".
The reason for giving this piece any points at all is the fact that back in 1997 "The Burning Moon" was more or less a "first"; a curiosity rather than a real film. Nowadays these kinds of products have become rampant, especially in Germany. That is no longer the case and Orson Wells prophecy that "everybody wants to make movies and my stupid brother too" has fulfilled itself; an army of "stupid brothers", incompetent and unable to the last one (see above mentioned names). Makes you long for the days when producing films meant that you needed a budget, sponsors, producers and an able team technicians and artists.
So, if you want to make a movie, hey, why waste your time with film-school or talent? Assemble a crew of friends and neighbours, invest 100 bucks in a digital camera, find yourself a back-lot or piece of forest where filming is free, and raid the kitchen for special-effects items. Then write yourself a couple of glowing reviews on IMDb and applaud yourself for being "a real film-maker". Again, for above mentioned "film-makers", including director Olaf Ittenbach, this hasn't only become employment but a sport and a virtual way of life.
4/10 points – one for being a first, one for the ambition, one for the "hell"-scene and one for the general nihilistic, morbid and misanthropic aura that surrounds the stories.
Splatter-ific! Ittenbach revives the gore-fest
jcarcinogen7 July 2001
Olaf Ittenbach's Burning Moon earns high praise as he carries on the tradition of film in the underground genre of the splatter horror film. Combing a Romero/Fulci world, the movie tells a story of Peter (played by Ittenbach) who recites 2 horrific bedtime stories to his sister.
One entitled "Julia's Love" tells the story of a serial killer who takes his blind date and her family on a blood soaked killing rampage. The scenes of splatter are suspiciously amateurish compromised of blood splatter on walls, and good old exploding heads. Ittenbach relishes in gratuitous gore and a standard knife to the head is done with like almost flawless spectacular Stan Winston special effects.
The second bedtime story called "The Purity" is about a crazed satan-worshipping priest and the disturbed small German town that has been invaded by some mysterious killings. The townspeople try to find revenge on an innocent suspect. This story gets long and tedious but the payoff is almost worth it.
The end of the story sequence is interrupted by "Hell" the neverending, non stop gore footage. Body parts, intestines, decapitated arms, heads, legs. Ittenbach includes a unique ocular trauma scene in which a man eats his own eyeball.
Ittenbach shares his German glory with Jorg Buttgereit and his Nekromantik films. If you like the previously mentioned films, Burning Moon is up your alley.
They don't make movies like this anymore and it seems the more we get bombarded by Hollywood horror teen scream-a-thons, the more you appreciate an all out gore-fest.
One entitled "Julia's Love" tells the story of a serial killer who takes his blind date and her family on a blood soaked killing rampage. The scenes of splatter are suspiciously amateurish compromised of blood splatter on walls, and good old exploding heads. Ittenbach relishes in gratuitous gore and a standard knife to the head is done with like almost flawless spectacular Stan Winston special effects.
The second bedtime story called "The Purity" is about a crazed satan-worshipping priest and the disturbed small German town that has been invaded by some mysterious killings. The townspeople try to find revenge on an innocent suspect. This story gets long and tedious but the payoff is almost worth it.
The end of the story sequence is interrupted by "Hell" the neverending, non stop gore footage. Body parts, intestines, decapitated arms, heads, legs. Ittenbach includes a unique ocular trauma scene in which a man eats his own eyeball.
Ittenbach shares his German glory with Jorg Buttgereit and his Nekromantik films. If you like the previously mentioned films, Burning Moon is up your alley.
They don't make movies like this anymore and it seems the more we get bombarded by Hollywood horror teen scream-a-thons, the more you appreciate an all out gore-fest.
splatter masterpiece
trashgang9 September 2009
Germany, it still will be a weird country. Most of the movies coming from there are the real gory splatter ones. Weird, because the German authorities doesn't allow those kind of movies. Bethmann and Ittenbach are the best know directors of the genre with Bethmann having his own label, X Rated Kult. Do I need to say more. This movie belongs to Ittenbach's first attempts in the genre. Still unavailable on DVD it conquered the earth on VHS, but still some versions were only 88 minutes long. My copy was uncut, so 99 minutes long. The flick is about a guy who has to babysit his little sister. Fed up with his parents and the situation, he's in his puberty, he tells his sister some horror stories. The stories itself those are the one we see in the movie. Two stories it is, the first one not that original, and not that gory too, some stupid effects, watch out for the collision with a car and a person! But the second story is the best, and there you will find the gore. like Premutos it's full of entrails and torture. This is for the geeks out there, one of Ittenbach better ones.
Upsetting but you knew that
BandSAboutMovies27 September 2021
Warning: Spoilers
Writer/director/FX artist Olaf Ittenbach must have been thinking, "No one has any idea what a SOV horror movie from Germany could do to peoples' brains. Let's change that." He pushed things so far that this movie was banned for twenty years from the very nation that it came from, which is pretty astounding - and a testament to how offensive it is - if you think about it.
Ittenbach plays Peter, a junkie whose parents somehow trust enough to babysit his sister, so he reacts as any of us would be shooting up and then telling her some stories that no child - or adult really - should ever hear.
In "Julia's Love," Julia has a date with the perfect man. The perfect man who is also a serial killer who is going to follow her home and decimate her entire family. And then in "The Purity," a series of murders and assaults rocks a 1950s town and the wrong man is accused; unfortunately, he's being protected by the real killer. And then, as things happen, everything literally goes to hell.
And then Peter kills his sister and himself.
It's a feel good movie packed with gore, depravity and - depending on how many times you watched your VHS tape - bad tracking. I mean, it does have a priest drinking blood, worshipping Satan and then torn in half while in Hell, so it immediately gets 6 stars.
This is exactly the kind of movie that people that worry about kids watching horror movies think that they are watching. So don't let those closed-minded jerks down!
Ittenbach plays Peter, a junkie whose parents somehow trust enough to babysit his sister, so he reacts as any of us would be shooting up and then telling her some stories that no child - or adult really - should ever hear.
In "Julia's Love," Julia has a date with the perfect man. The perfect man who is also a serial killer who is going to follow her home and decimate her entire family. And then in "The Purity," a series of murders and assaults rocks a 1950s town and the wrong man is accused; unfortunately, he's being protected by the real killer. And then, as things happen, everything literally goes to hell.
And then Peter kills his sister and himself.
It's a feel good movie packed with gore, depravity and - depending on how many times you watched your VHS tape - bad tracking. I mean, it does have a priest drinking blood, worshipping Satan and then torn in half while in Hell, so it immediately gets 6 stars.
This is exactly the kind of movie that people that worry about kids watching horror movies think that they are watching. So don't let those closed-minded jerks down!
Now that's how you tear someone in half!
ElijahCSkuggs24 December 2008
One day while surfing the net I happened to come upon a gif of some guy getting torn in half from his crotch up. And it was awesome. I happened to find out it was by a guy I was indeed aware of. One of the true gorehound horror directors out there. Mister Olaf Ittenbach. With that scene and the realization it was made by Olaf, it was time to watch The Burning Moon.
The story is about some doucher/druggie/low-life who tells his young sister some stories before she goes to bed. Not that she wanted to hear them. He was shootin up so he thought it was a good idea. Anyways, he tells her two grim as hell stories that don't skimp out on the red stuff. The first revolves around an escaped blood-thirsty mental patient and a young girl who accidentally went out on a date with him. Bad things go down. Which is good! The second story revolves around an evil priest, an innocent young man and a bunch of angry town folk. This second story also delivers the red stuff, and the last third of this one is pretty much non-stop grue.
Both stories were very grim, very evil, and just flat out what a serious horror fan should appreciate. Olaf's movies are rarely ever produced on high budgets, but what he manages to show us is pretty impressive. The atmospheres and overall tone of this flick really was very ugly and downbeat. And as usual the writing is very weak, but still, as usual, pretty funny.
The Burning Moon is another gore-filled flick from Olaf that any fan of said director, gore and horror should definitely give it a peek. And did I mention a dude gets graphically ripped in half? Oh yeah.
The story is about some doucher/druggie/low-life who tells his young sister some stories before she goes to bed. Not that she wanted to hear them. He was shootin up so he thought it was a good idea. Anyways, he tells her two grim as hell stories that don't skimp out on the red stuff. The first revolves around an escaped blood-thirsty mental patient and a young girl who accidentally went out on a date with him. Bad things go down. Which is good! The second story revolves around an evil priest, an innocent young man and a bunch of angry town folk. This second story also delivers the red stuff, and the last third of this one is pretty much non-stop grue.
Both stories were very grim, very evil, and just flat out what a serious horror fan should appreciate. Olaf's movies are rarely ever produced on high budgets, but what he manages to show us is pretty impressive. The atmospheres and overall tone of this flick really was very ugly and downbeat. And as usual the writing is very weak, but still, as usual, pretty funny.
The Burning Moon is another gore-filled flick from Olaf that any fan of said director, gore and horror should definitely give it a peek. And did I mention a dude gets graphically ripped in half? Oh yeah.
Definitely file under gore curiosity and/or relic
selfdestructo16 October 2022
Warning: Spoilers
I watched No Reason the other night, and it intrigued me enough to seek out what else this guy has been up to. This is apparently Olaf Ittenbach's second film, he acts in it, and he is basically still a kid. This had to have been shot on a VHS camcorder (and not even a good one), circa 1992. You've got 98 minutes to slog through, for what has got to be less than 10 minutes of a Hell sequence (the bulk of No Reason IS a Hell sequence, certainly done with more money, and more panache, plus you've got a nude woman covered in blood. Here, you're stuck with bare men's bottoms).
The Burning Moon is, frankly, kind of a bore, but there's plenty of blood, if that's what you came for. Olaf plays a violent youth with an attitude problem, who is saddled with babysitting his little sister for the night. He tells her two totally inappropriate stories. In the first, a woman goes on a date with an escaped mental patient... who happens to be a serial killer. She escapes, he finds her address, and proceeds to slaughter everyone. The End. The second story is more convoluted (speaking of convoluted, in No Reason, Olaf tries to intellectualize death!). A priest has a pact with Satan, and he preaches (fairly extensively) at church his faith in God, then goes out raping and killing women. A loner gets the blame. I did not know moustaches were big in Germany in 1992. In one scene, I counted SIX! To make matters more confusing, the loner appears in varying scenes with varying facial hair. Come on, give the guy a fake one! No, what little budget this movie's got, clearly went into special effects for the Hell sequence.
So the moustached thugs beat up on the moustached loner, who is rescued by the moustached priest. One thug is paid to finish the loner off. It gets a little confusing from here. Part of the pact requires the priest to kill himself, and maybe the female sacrifice was part of this? Which brings the loner back as a zombie... For about 10 seconds. Unless the guy appeared in Hell somewhere, ya got me. Anyway, cue Hell, which is apparently some decrepit basement, and get ready for all sorts of grotesqueries. This is where the killer thug gets his, locked onto a table, and is easily the highlight of this entire mess. Olaf steals the reverse-chains-to-the-limbs from Hellraiser, and in spectacular fashion, rips the guy in half from his crotch, upward. For a no-budget German VHS gore flick, this was an impressive and creative effect. Hey, worth 5 stars.
The Burning Moon is, frankly, kind of a bore, but there's plenty of blood, if that's what you came for. Olaf plays a violent youth with an attitude problem, who is saddled with babysitting his little sister for the night. He tells her two totally inappropriate stories. In the first, a woman goes on a date with an escaped mental patient... who happens to be a serial killer. She escapes, he finds her address, and proceeds to slaughter everyone. The End. The second story is more convoluted (speaking of convoluted, in No Reason, Olaf tries to intellectualize death!). A priest has a pact with Satan, and he preaches (fairly extensively) at church his faith in God, then goes out raping and killing women. A loner gets the blame. I did not know moustaches were big in Germany in 1992. In one scene, I counted SIX! To make matters more confusing, the loner appears in varying scenes with varying facial hair. Come on, give the guy a fake one! No, what little budget this movie's got, clearly went into special effects for the Hell sequence.
So the moustached thugs beat up on the moustached loner, who is rescued by the moustached priest. One thug is paid to finish the loner off. It gets a little confusing from here. Part of the pact requires the priest to kill himself, and maybe the female sacrifice was part of this? Which brings the loner back as a zombie... For about 10 seconds. Unless the guy appeared in Hell somewhere, ya got me. Anyway, cue Hell, which is apparently some decrepit basement, and get ready for all sorts of grotesqueries. This is where the killer thug gets his, locked onto a table, and is easily the highlight of this entire mess. Olaf steals the reverse-chains-to-the-limbs from Hellraiser, and in spectacular fashion, rips the guy in half from his crotch, upward. For a no-budget German VHS gore flick, this was an impressive and creative effect. Hey, worth 5 stars.
Very gory!
HumanoidOfFlesh5 March 2002
"The Burning Moon" is a shot on video type home movie,but a bit more professional than other similar stuff.It has some really good special effects and is gorier than Andreas Schnaas' stuff,if a little less sadistic.The film is about a druged up teen(Olaf Ittenbach)who gets involved with gang fights and has problems at home.He reads his little sister two stories-which form a basis of the movie.First story "Julia's Love" is about a serial killer,who escapes from asylum and terrorises a girl.Second story "The Purity" is about a priest who likes sacrificing and raping women.He kills himself,but a local who think another bloke is the killer kills him,and he returns as a zombie and it climaxes in Hell.Ittenbach's vision of Hell is almost too horrible to watch-the gore is truly extreme!A really good film,my favourite gore scene:a man strapped to a table is operated on by two demons,who pluck out his eye,crave open his body,rip out his insides and then tear him in half with chains from crotch to throat.
Decent German Gore Outing From Olaf Ittenbach...
EVOL6661 August 2007
Warning: Spoilers
As I've stated in other reviews - I'm not a huge fan of the Euro-gore scene, most films of the genre being silly and pointless. But I have seen a few exceptions, and THE BURNING MOON is one of them. Not a "great" film by any means, but compared to other similar films, it holds up rather well. Unfortunately my copy is in German language only, so I may have missed a few points, but here's the basic story:
The film centers around a drug-addict guy who tells his little sister two "fairy tales" before she goes to bed. The first entitled "Julia's Love" is about an escaped mental patient who stalks a woman and her family and dispatches most of them in gory fashion. The second, entitled "The Purity" is about a priest who moonlights as a satanist/rapist/murderer who does his deeds amongst the local villagers. If I understood the story right, an innocent is wrongfully suspected of the murders and is killed, and this segment ends with a suitably gory finale set in hell...
I've had THE BURNING MOON laying around for quite a while and just now got to checking it out due to the fact that I've been so disappointed with many of the German/Euro-gore films I've seen - but this one was decent. The blood flows pretty hot-'n'-heavy pretty much right from the start, and let's face it - that's really all we're interested in a film such as this. I liked the "serious" tone of the film, and even though it's obviously a very low-budget affair, there is some decent FX work in the film, and both stories are suitably "rough" and mean-spirited. Definitely worth a look for the splatter-heads out there - one of the better films that this often weak genre has to offer...7/10
The film centers around a drug-addict guy who tells his little sister two "fairy tales" before she goes to bed. The first entitled "Julia's Love" is about an escaped mental patient who stalks a woman and her family and dispatches most of them in gory fashion. The second, entitled "The Purity" is about a priest who moonlights as a satanist/rapist/murderer who does his deeds amongst the local villagers. If I understood the story right, an innocent is wrongfully suspected of the murders and is killed, and this segment ends with a suitably gory finale set in hell...
I've had THE BURNING MOON laying around for quite a while and just now got to checking it out due to the fact that I've been so disappointed with many of the German/Euro-gore films I've seen - but this one was decent. The blood flows pretty hot-'n'-heavy pretty much right from the start, and let's face it - that's really all we're interested in a film such as this. I liked the "serious" tone of the film, and even though it's obviously a very low-budget affair, there is some decent FX work in the film, and both stories are suitably "rough" and mean-spirited. Definitely worth a look for the splatter-heads out there - one of the better films that this often weak genre has to offer...7/10
Good gore, bad movie...
guitarkelly4 November 2006
I rented this because of the hell sequence. This infamous scene was filmed in a basement or an abandoned school! Why comments don't say this is bull. I did not know hell was made of white concrete walls and shower stalls, yes shower stalls! Ittenbach plays the lead role, and is dressed like he's in a Winger video. There is a gang fight with fake punching, and kicking. Dialog that make no sense, bad lighting.
It appears that Olaf even used a blank Wal-Mart VHS cassette to record on instead of spending the extra 2 dollars for a TDK VHS tape Good gore in last 10 minutes, that is it. Bad acting and shot on video.
Stick to good gore like Alexander Aja, Savini, or the Italian masters.
Burning moon should be burned.
It appears that Olaf even used a blank Wal-Mart VHS cassette to record on instead of spending the extra 2 dollars for a TDK VHS tape Good gore in last 10 minutes, that is it. Bad acting and shot on video.
Stick to good gore like Alexander Aja, Savini, or the Italian masters.
Burning moon should be burned.
Rare to find
evilkingnightmare7 April 2009
This movie is a tough mama to find. I finally have it! I saw the trailer in the Traces Of Death III video. When I first saw the trailer I got so curious that I wanted to see this movie. I never found this movie online. The only place I found it was on ebay for more 80 bucks. And I said, 'no way I'm spending 80 dollars just to own this VHS movie rare to find.' Anyway. About a year ago I was in a flea market, somewhere in Mexico. So I saw this guy selling original DVDs for 5 dollars. For my surprise I found The Burning Moon on the section where they have all the 5 dollar movies. I was like, WOA!!!! Hellyeah! On DVD! ORIGINAL! No pirated DVD. 100% ORIGINAL! I was happy to find and I bought it. I'm curious. Where did this guy found or how in the hell was he able to sell a hard to find movie for only 5 bucks! The town that I visited was Ciudad Juarez, Mexico. On the border of El Paso, Texas. Thats where I found the movie. I'm from Laredo, Texas. This movie is to gory for my surprise. A mad priest raping a young girl and then kills her, a criminally insane killer on the loose murdering people, a torturer torturing a guy with drilling his teeth and taking out his guts and then rips him in half! Oh MAN!!! This movie is insane and I loved it! I don't know why is so underground and hard to find this film. Anyway, if you can get your hands on this film, don't sell this film. This is a cult and a collectors film. Nice work Olaf!
Nihilistic Gorefest
alleywayhorror5 November 2021
Olaf Ittenbach's Burning Moon is the perfect example of nihilism. This anthology movie is split into two shorts: Julia's Love and The Purity. Julia's Love shows how no one can be trusted and The Purity shows that jumping to conclusions can have awful, awful consequences. The meanings behind these stories are, of course, up to interpretation but it is no question that the second short, The Purity, has a deeper, nihilistic message. A cynical take on religion, this segment quickly ramps to horrific deaths and an end scene that will leave the viewer shocked.
The gore in this movie is nothing short of stomach churning and over the top. Any gorehound would be pleased. So I encourage you, if you're a fan of SOV horror and gory movies, to give this movie a shot.
The gore in this movie is nothing short of stomach churning and over the top. Any gorehound would be pleased. So I encourage you, if you're a fan of SOV horror and gory movies, to give this movie a shot.
Nasty movie
CaZSuede17 January 1999
It is an amateur movie, with non-actors in the role. The main character is a junkie, forced to babysit his little sister and he terrorizes her by telling horrific stories. There are 2 stories and first is about a psychotic serial killer who terrorizes his blind date and her family. The second is about a serial killer priest who rapes and murders to cleanse their souls.
It is very gory and boring in many parts. The second story has a extremely gory scene which is not for the faint of heart. However most of this movie is not worth watching.
It is very gory and boring in many parts. The second story has a extremely gory scene which is not for the faint of heart. However most of this movie is not worth watching.
Not that bad of a flick
BlasphemousMusic21 November 2001
yes it has been a while since I have seen the movie but I do remember it for the most part. I am a horror movie junkie and have seen my fair share. This movie has bad acting yes, some cheesy gore effects yes, but I found it to be a decent flick. The scene at the end it worth the money alone. It was very very good even with todays computer effects and such. Not really much of a plot at all in the movie but sometimes I am just in a mood to se some good gore. Not the best review but I think I should at least add a better comment than the ones I have seen. This movie is not really that bad, go rent it for yourself and don't listen to what others have to say (even me).
so bad it's good
u-ziq26 January 1999
campy low-budget splatter-flick that merits a rental fee only if your VCR has a good fast-forward button. highlights include: the incredibly cheesy dream segue between the serial killer and the girl he's stalking (German shepards running through grassy fields, etc.) and the utterly gratuitous and out-of-context 10-minute gore spectacular at the end of the movie. my friend and i hypothesize that the producers of this movie came up with all the gore footage and realized they couldn't release it without at least 80 more minutes of footage. hence the first 90% of the tape - utter tripe.
Surrealistic Anthology is Almost Too Horrible to Watch
jfrentzen-942-2042111 February 2024
A tripped-out heroin addict relates two questionable bedtime stories to send his little sister to sleep. In the first, "Julia's Love," a woman finds that the young man she's dating is an escaped lunatic who butchers her family, and unsuccessfully tries to kill her. In "The Purity," a deranged priest rapes and murders women. Though an innocent handyman is suspected and lynched for the crimes, the priest ends up in Hell, literally, where he is strapped to a table by the handyman's ghost and dissected.
Both stories are revolting and nightmarish. Director Olaf Ittenbach (who plays the storyteller) makes a halfhearted attempt to contrast the two serial killers. The first revealed his dementia as a child and was locked away in a mental institution; the priest, on the other hand, conceals his madness behind a church institution and its facade of respectability. Ittenbach seems to endorse public displays of one's psychotic behavior, or else face the consequences in the afterlife.
"Julia's Lover" and the framing story advance woodenly toward predictable conclusions, but "The Purity" is constructed with more assurance. Ittenbach's surrealistic vision of Hell is almost too horrible to watch, as is one of the murder scenes, in which his nihilistic camera lingers on every nuance and facial expression of a victim whose throat has just been cut. The shot-on-video feature is in German with English subtitles.
Both stories are revolting and nightmarish. Director Olaf Ittenbach (who plays the storyteller) makes a halfhearted attempt to contrast the two serial killers. The first revealed his dementia as a child and was locked away in a mental institution; the priest, on the other hand, conceals his madness behind a church institution and its facade of respectability. Ittenbach seems to endorse public displays of one's psychotic behavior, or else face the consequences in the afterlife.
"Julia's Lover" and the framing story advance woodenly toward predictable conclusions, but "The Purity" is constructed with more assurance. Ittenbach's surrealistic vision of Hell is almost too horrible to watch, as is one of the murder scenes, in which his nihilistic camera lingers on every nuance and facial expression of a victim whose throat has just been cut. The shot-on-video feature is in German with English subtitles.
Above average gore flick from Germany
Groverdox9 July 2023
Warning: Spoilers
A stroppy high school student (I assume?) tells his principal (just guessing here) to eff off, and then goes to what looks like a "Warriors" style showdown with another group of people, all holding chains and knives and beer (maybe because they're German).
The boy goes home to tend to his injuries, and when his mother wants to know what's wrong, he curses and throws something at her. When dad gets home, it only gets worse. At this point I'm wondering how much more domestic misery I can take.
The introduction of a young girl (the delinquent's younger sister?) seems like a threat. I don't want to see this antisocial behaviour inflicted on a child, and I wonder how the filmmaker convinced her parents to let her be in the movie, low-budget gore flick that it is.
"I'm not watching that b*tch!" the delinquent snarls when asked to mind her for the night. We can see why he doesn't want to do it: he goes into his room and shoots heroin.
It's like the movie is just stacking delinquency upon delinquency here: the kids swears at his principal, fights in the street, assaults his mother, fights with his father, verbally abuses his kid sister, and does drugs. It probably wasn't necessary to show all this stuff. He's a delinquent. We get it.
Did I mention that this is all just a framing story - and a rather unnecessary one at that? After all that the delinquent just shows up in his sister's room and starts reading her a story. Why would he do that, with what we've seen from him so far? And how would he do it? With the heroin he just did, shouldn't he be nodding off?
The first story he tells the girl is called Julia's Love.
In it, a guy escapes from a mental institution and runs another guy over in a fairly unconvincing special effect where the character hit seems to turn into a ragdoll. What the scene lacks in realism it makes up for in gore, however, as it still makes you cringe a little bit.
The mental patient has been under lock and key since he was ten, when he saw his grandfather kill his whole family, but he is apparently able to assimilate into society and score himself a date with a pretty girl almost as soon as he leaves the padded rooms.
When the girl realises she's in the car of the guy who just killed two people and is all over the news, she runs away, leaving our escaped patient to sate his bloodlust with a prostitute instead. Then, he breaks into a woman's house and cuts off her fingers.
The husband gets his hand hacked off at the wrist, and then a blade through his face. The effects are surprisingly good for a low-budget flick.
The couple's daughter, lastly, is stabbed repeatedly, but also has her face smashed into the bathroom wall.
These are apparently the family of the escapee's date. In a struggle with the killer, she's knocked unconscious, and he waits for her to awaken before telling her how he wants to have a proper romance with her, amidst all the killing. In a very creative shot, he makes her swallow the eyeball of one of his victims, and this is filmed from the perspective of her tonsils.
The killer is just about to ice his beau when he is shot by a cop on his trail (he threw a head on the cop's car), and the cop shoots him once in the head, making it explode! Also a pretty cool effect.
This first segment, the first of two, is really nothing in terms of plot/characters/story, but it does have impressive effects for such a low budget. That's really all that enlivens it, but at least it's something.
Back in the wrap-round story, the girl, unsurprisingly, asks her ghastly brother to stop scaring her with stories of dismemberment and decapitation. He yells that the stories are "the best in the world", and quickly introduces the next one, called "The Purity".
For some reason this one is set in 1957.
It begins with a young woman getting knocked off her bicycle and being raped by a random guy in a fairly unconvincing scene. He then puts a bullet in her head.
He starts reciting a prayer, and the scene segues to the same man in church, saying mass with the corpse of the girl in the coffin next to him. This might be something I've never seen before: a killer priest who gives the funeral rites to someone he offed himself.
The priest apparently believes in "purifying" people by killing them. He shows up at some middle-aged couple's house and shoots the husband to death, putting a bullet in the middle of the forehead as he did with the girl before.
He chains the guy's wife up somewhere, recites some prayers, slices her throat and drinks her blood from a chalice. Is the priest a closet devil worshiper?
Nobody seems to suspect the priest is the killer. Instead, they blame a young guy whom the priest gave counsel. The priest kills himself the same way he's killed others, with a bullet in the head, but the young guy gets beaten to death by someone else who works at his job, while gentle acoustic music plays on the soundtrack.
This second, and last, story ends with a series of scenes in a low-budget gore flick's version of Hell. There's a lot of dissonant, distorted screaming on the soundtrack, a lot of entrails, a lot of broken bones, and some torture/execution. It feels like here the movie finally comes off the rails and shows us something more creative. If I remember anything about this movie, it'll be these scenes.
They culminate in a lengthy torture scene in which deformed and costumed men nail a guy to a bed, drill through his teeth, and finally disembowel him. He is eventually torn apart by the legs like a wishbone (remember "Bone Tomahawk"? This might be even more gruesome, though of course not as convincing).
The movie returns to the wrap-around story, and we see that the delinquent has murdered his sister with a knife in her belly. He then cuts his wrists and the movie is over. Kind of a happy ending, I guess.
Though it's no masterpiece, "The Burning Moon" is better than I expected it to be. None of the stories, including the framing story, are interesting from a plot perspective, nor are they memorable. They're just an excuse to string gore scenes together. But those scenes are surprisingly well handled for such a low budget flick. Allegedly many of the scenes were shot without a permit because they couldn't afford one, and the actors did their own stunts. They spent their money wisely, making this one a must-see for gorehounds.
The boy goes home to tend to his injuries, and when his mother wants to know what's wrong, he curses and throws something at her. When dad gets home, it only gets worse. At this point I'm wondering how much more domestic misery I can take.
The introduction of a young girl (the delinquent's younger sister?) seems like a threat. I don't want to see this antisocial behaviour inflicted on a child, and I wonder how the filmmaker convinced her parents to let her be in the movie, low-budget gore flick that it is.
"I'm not watching that b*tch!" the delinquent snarls when asked to mind her for the night. We can see why he doesn't want to do it: he goes into his room and shoots heroin.
It's like the movie is just stacking delinquency upon delinquency here: the kids swears at his principal, fights in the street, assaults his mother, fights with his father, verbally abuses his kid sister, and does drugs. It probably wasn't necessary to show all this stuff. He's a delinquent. We get it.
Did I mention that this is all just a framing story - and a rather unnecessary one at that? After all that the delinquent just shows up in his sister's room and starts reading her a story. Why would he do that, with what we've seen from him so far? And how would he do it? With the heroin he just did, shouldn't he be nodding off?
The first story he tells the girl is called Julia's Love.
In it, a guy escapes from a mental institution and runs another guy over in a fairly unconvincing special effect where the character hit seems to turn into a ragdoll. What the scene lacks in realism it makes up for in gore, however, as it still makes you cringe a little bit.
The mental patient has been under lock and key since he was ten, when he saw his grandfather kill his whole family, but he is apparently able to assimilate into society and score himself a date with a pretty girl almost as soon as he leaves the padded rooms.
When the girl realises she's in the car of the guy who just killed two people and is all over the news, she runs away, leaving our escaped patient to sate his bloodlust with a prostitute instead. Then, he breaks into a woman's house and cuts off her fingers.
The husband gets his hand hacked off at the wrist, and then a blade through his face. The effects are surprisingly good for a low-budget flick.
The couple's daughter, lastly, is stabbed repeatedly, but also has her face smashed into the bathroom wall.
These are apparently the family of the escapee's date. In a struggle with the killer, she's knocked unconscious, and he waits for her to awaken before telling her how he wants to have a proper romance with her, amidst all the killing. In a very creative shot, he makes her swallow the eyeball of one of his victims, and this is filmed from the perspective of her tonsils.
The killer is just about to ice his beau when he is shot by a cop on his trail (he threw a head on the cop's car), and the cop shoots him once in the head, making it explode! Also a pretty cool effect.
This first segment, the first of two, is really nothing in terms of plot/characters/story, but it does have impressive effects for such a low budget. That's really all that enlivens it, but at least it's something.
Back in the wrap-round story, the girl, unsurprisingly, asks her ghastly brother to stop scaring her with stories of dismemberment and decapitation. He yells that the stories are "the best in the world", and quickly introduces the next one, called "The Purity".
For some reason this one is set in 1957.
It begins with a young woman getting knocked off her bicycle and being raped by a random guy in a fairly unconvincing scene. He then puts a bullet in her head.
He starts reciting a prayer, and the scene segues to the same man in church, saying mass with the corpse of the girl in the coffin next to him. This might be something I've never seen before: a killer priest who gives the funeral rites to someone he offed himself.
The priest apparently believes in "purifying" people by killing them. He shows up at some middle-aged couple's house and shoots the husband to death, putting a bullet in the middle of the forehead as he did with the girl before.
He chains the guy's wife up somewhere, recites some prayers, slices her throat and drinks her blood from a chalice. Is the priest a closet devil worshiper?
Nobody seems to suspect the priest is the killer. Instead, they blame a young guy whom the priest gave counsel. The priest kills himself the same way he's killed others, with a bullet in the head, but the young guy gets beaten to death by someone else who works at his job, while gentle acoustic music plays on the soundtrack.
This second, and last, story ends with a series of scenes in a low-budget gore flick's version of Hell. There's a lot of dissonant, distorted screaming on the soundtrack, a lot of entrails, a lot of broken bones, and some torture/execution. It feels like here the movie finally comes off the rails and shows us something more creative. If I remember anything about this movie, it'll be these scenes.
They culminate in a lengthy torture scene in which deformed and costumed men nail a guy to a bed, drill through his teeth, and finally disembowel him. He is eventually torn apart by the legs like a wishbone (remember "Bone Tomahawk"? This might be even more gruesome, though of course not as convincing).
The movie returns to the wrap-around story, and we see that the delinquent has murdered his sister with a knife in her belly. He then cuts his wrists and the movie is over. Kind of a happy ending, I guess.
Though it's no masterpiece, "The Burning Moon" is better than I expected it to be. None of the stories, including the framing story, are interesting from a plot perspective, nor are they memorable. They're just an excuse to string gore scenes together. But those scenes are surprisingly well handled for such a low budget flick. Allegedly many of the scenes were shot without a permit because they couldn't afford one, and the actors did their own stunts. They spent their money wisely, making this one a must-see for gorehounds.
Not good enough for this runtime
Horst_In_Translation13 August 2016
Warning: Spoilers
"The Burning Moon" is a German film from 1992 and first of all it needs to be said that the runtime here on IMDb is not correct at 86 minutes because this one goes on for another roughly 10 minutes, so makes it past the 90 minute mark. The writer and director is Olaf Ittenbach (his second film and he was still in his 20s when he made it), one of the most known German horror filmmakers, especially when it comes to gore. The reason for this may not be his talent with horror, but probably his talent with comedy. His works usually put a smile on your lips occasionally because of how absurd and very much over the top they are and this one here is no exception. And lets be honest, it is a bit of an achievement if somebody makes a film like this and I as an audience member do not feel for the characters brutally slaughtered in here, but instead hope there will be as much blood as possible.
So from that perspective, this film was a success I guess. But then there is also the component of the plot and story-telling and this is where this movie here disappoints about as much as most other of these very graphic horror films from the likes of Ittenbach. In the first half, there is still a bit of a story and that's also why I easily preferred the first 45 minutes. A woman has a blind date, but runs into a lunatic mass murderer afterward who keeps killing everybody that crosses his path. Can she make it out alive? Watch for yourself. And maybe switch off afterward as the second 45 minutes after a clean break is about a completely different story, so you can maybe say it is two films in one. All in all, I cannot say this was good enough to let me recommend it, maybe if it had stayed as good as the first half. Watch something else instead.
So from that perspective, this film was a success I guess. But then there is also the component of the plot and story-telling and this is where this movie here disappoints about as much as most other of these very graphic horror films from the likes of Ittenbach. In the first half, there is still a bit of a story and that's also why I easily preferred the first 45 minutes. A woman has a blind date, but runs into a lunatic mass murderer afterward who keeps killing everybody that crosses his path. Can she make it out alive? Watch for yourself. And maybe switch off afterward as the second 45 minutes after a clean break is about a completely different story, so you can maybe say it is two films in one. All in all, I cannot say this was good enough to let me recommend it, maybe if it had stayed as good as the first half. Watch something else instead.
Burning Love!
Karl Self9 March 2008
This was my first Olaf Ittenbach movie and I loved it! OK, so it's budget gore, and if you cried to "Shakespeare In Love" or need to impress your girlfriend with your sensitivity, then this probably isn't your cauldron of festering sewage. But if you're hankering for a bit of bare-knuckles film-making and a few ladles of ultraviolence, then this vid's for you. It's gory throughout, and for the hell scene near the end of the movie the film crew really pulls out all stops of depravity.
This is the movie that all teenage boys dream about making. I am all the more impressed as I know how complicated and cumbersome video editing was in the early Nineties -- a lot more difficult than editing ordinary silver-halide film (keeping image and sound in synch was an absolute bitch of a task), and no comparison to today where you can just do it on your PC.
Actually, for those of you unfamiliar with the trials and tribulations of linear video editing, let me provide you with a little 101 on the subject matter: while video made shooting a lot easier and cheaper, editing became hugely more complicated as on video the sound is about two seconds out of synch with the image, so after each cut the new scene would be silent for the first two seconds. Also, precise cutting is tricky, editing scenes in or out is nearly impossible, and the image quality degenerates quickly -- it's an absolute nightmare. This explains some of the strange technical features of this movie, they were necessary compromises which Ittenbach was forced to make, rather than cute idiosyncratic ideas of his: namely dubbed soundtrack, dictatorial scripting, and single-take scenes.
The love and dedication that went into making this movie seems strangely at odds with the destructiveness and hate it narrates. I look forward to seeing more of Ittenbach's stuff.
This is the movie that all teenage boys dream about making. I am all the more impressed as I know how complicated and cumbersome video editing was in the early Nineties -- a lot more difficult than editing ordinary silver-halide film (keeping image and sound in synch was an absolute bitch of a task), and no comparison to today where you can just do it on your PC.
Actually, for those of you unfamiliar with the trials and tribulations of linear video editing, let me provide you with a little 101 on the subject matter: while video made shooting a lot easier and cheaper, editing became hugely more complicated as on video the sound is about two seconds out of synch with the image, so after each cut the new scene would be silent for the first two seconds. Also, precise cutting is tricky, editing scenes in or out is nearly impossible, and the image quality degenerates quickly -- it's an absolute nightmare. This explains some of the strange technical features of this movie, they were necessary compromises which Ittenbach was forced to make, rather than cute idiosyncratic ideas of his: namely dubbed soundtrack, dictatorial scripting, and single-take scenes.
The love and dedication that went into making this movie seems strangely at odds with the destructiveness and hate it narrates. I look forward to seeing more of Ittenbach's stuff.
As good as the rest
Zombie7926 November 1999
I saw this movie in german minus subtitles so i cant tell the nuances of the plot(LOL)but i quite enjoyed this little gorefest,probably cause i dig German underground horror.There are three stories,they all contain extreme gore,its quite imaginative(esp the hell sequence)and well done for a homemade effort.Recommended for fans of Nekromantik and the like.
Unintentionally hilarious
j_walking15169 August 2019
The ham acting and over the top gore. The synopsis of the short stories. Absolute laugh riot.
It is very gory but the gore is very dated. It is dark but the acting and way it is shot and it's low budget made it closer to a Troma film than anything horrific
It's Terrible
bwasman-3072323 June 2019
This movie sucks. It's truly not a good movie at all. BUT - it's incredibly entertaining, if only for the gore and the music. The acting? Atrocious. Storyline? Present, but not important. In fact, the vast majority of this movie is not important, until you get to Hell. I saw this a couple months ago, and it's mostly forgettable with the exception of some cool kills sprinkled throughout. The framing story is pretty messed up. But the true brilliance in this movie is the 8 minute sequence where we get a glimpse of Olaf Ittenbach's low budget version of Hell. This is not your typical depiction of hell - no, this quite literally is an abandoned industrial warehouse with props out of a corny Halloween haunted attraction and dozens of expendable extras turning into piles of meat through random disgusting actions. Really, it's a montage of gore. There's people getting shot, eaten, and burned alive, there's eyeballs and heads and torsos, and all this happening in what could just as easily be the bathroom from the first Saw movie. Brick and concrete and metal and fire. This montage goes by with surprising excellent sound design for this kind of movie - everything happens over a background of sinister industrial/orchestral/choral explosions of sound a constant layer of screaming and moaning and crackling fire. This is all topped off by an extended torture sequence in which a guy is stretched out on a table by a metal mask wearing demon monster in a red cloak and then is drilled, sliced, dissected, and corkscrewed before being torn in half vertically by the legs. It is really that awesome. If you don't care about the whole movie, this sequence can be found on YouTube and if this is your speed but you don't want to spend the whole 90 or so minutes on it, this is the move.
Once upon a time, in a faraway land, there lived a psychotic killer...
BA_Harrison28 November 2007
Warning: Spoilers
An early ultra-splatter effort from German gore-fiend Olaf Ittenbach, The Burning Moon is very low-budget, shot-on-video, extremely violent, and, therefore, not likely to appeal to a mainstream audience. However, if you're a fan of underground horror, and love blood 'n' guts to be splashed all over the screen, then this is one to add to your 'must-see' list.
The film starts rather slowly, following a teenage oik as he wastes his day attending an interview for a job (that he has no intention of doing), and taking part in a gang fight. At the end of his 'busy' day, he comes home, shoots up with heroin, and settles down to read his little sister a couple of bed-time stories that only a violent junkie would consider suitable.
So far, so 'ho-hum'. But then things start to get good.
Story number one is 'Julia's Love', in which a young woman unknowingly falls for an escaped homicidal lunatic. When she hears a news report about the maniac on the radio (whilst sat in a car, waiting for her new boyfriend), she realises the awful truth and runs away. Unfortunately, she has left her purse in the car, and it contains her address...
'Julia's Love' has a no-nonsense plot which means that Ittenbach can cut to the chase, and get on with delivering maximum nastiness ASAP. The psycho's escape at the beginning of the tale is fairly bloody, but pales in comparison to the gory delights towards the end, when he tracks down his girl and slaughters her family: heads roll, fingers and limbs are chopped off, bodies are burnt, and blood gushes. Great fun!
The second tale, 'The Purity', manages to push the depravity even further, starting as it means to go on with the rape and murder of a girl.... by a vicar! It transpires that the bible-thumping pillar of society is actually a secret Satanist, who enjoys the odd spot of killing in-between sermons. The locals are understandably annoyed by the fact that their population is rapidly dwindling, and decide on a spot of vigilantism; unfortunately, they blame the wrong persona simple farmhand. At this point the plot becomes slightly muddled, as the vicar commits suicide, the angry rabble pay to have the farmhand murdered, and the hired killer is given a personal tour of hell.
However, with absolutely tons of impressive effects and OTT violence packed into this segment, one can easily forgive the fact that the narrative goes a little awry. Ittenbach and his crew ladle on the grue, delivering some very nasty deaths, which include several shootings, a pitchfork attack, a throat slashing, a prolonged sequence in which the damned are seen tearing each other apart, and a show-stopping moment when a man is ripped completely in half.
By the time junkie-boy has finished his terrifying tales, his sister is dead to the world. And I mean that quite literallyher scag-head brother has stabbed her in the chest! Realising what he has done, he takes a knife to his wrist. And nobody lives happily ever after. The End.
The film starts rather slowly, following a teenage oik as he wastes his day attending an interview for a job (that he has no intention of doing), and taking part in a gang fight. At the end of his 'busy' day, he comes home, shoots up with heroin, and settles down to read his little sister a couple of bed-time stories that only a violent junkie would consider suitable.
So far, so 'ho-hum'. But then things start to get good.
Story number one is 'Julia's Love', in which a young woman unknowingly falls for an escaped homicidal lunatic. When she hears a news report about the maniac on the radio (whilst sat in a car, waiting for her new boyfriend), she realises the awful truth and runs away. Unfortunately, she has left her purse in the car, and it contains her address...
'Julia's Love' has a no-nonsense plot which means that Ittenbach can cut to the chase, and get on with delivering maximum nastiness ASAP. The psycho's escape at the beginning of the tale is fairly bloody, but pales in comparison to the gory delights towards the end, when he tracks down his girl and slaughters her family: heads roll, fingers and limbs are chopped off, bodies are burnt, and blood gushes. Great fun!
The second tale, 'The Purity', manages to push the depravity even further, starting as it means to go on with the rape and murder of a girl.... by a vicar! It transpires that the bible-thumping pillar of society is actually a secret Satanist, who enjoys the odd spot of killing in-between sermons. The locals are understandably annoyed by the fact that their population is rapidly dwindling, and decide on a spot of vigilantism; unfortunately, they blame the wrong persona simple farmhand. At this point the plot becomes slightly muddled, as the vicar commits suicide, the angry rabble pay to have the farmhand murdered, and the hired killer is given a personal tour of hell.
However, with absolutely tons of impressive effects and OTT violence packed into this segment, one can easily forgive the fact that the narrative goes a little awry. Ittenbach and his crew ladle on the grue, delivering some very nasty deaths, which include several shootings, a pitchfork attack, a throat slashing, a prolonged sequence in which the damned are seen tearing each other apart, and a show-stopping moment when a man is ripped completely in half.
By the time junkie-boy has finished his terrifying tales, his sister is dead to the world. And I mean that quite literallyher scag-head brother has stabbed her in the chest! Realising what he has done, he takes a knife to his wrist. And nobody lives happily ever after. The End.
One of the best cheap movies ever made
blasphemer131316 July 2001
This movie is just an excuse to kill off a lot of people on screen and show plenty of blood and guts and torture. Some scenes in this movie are just downright brutal and it's all very much over the top. For the low budget this obviously had the effects are fantastic and makes you wonder if they were only effects. This movie is extremely hard to track down and when you do find a copy it will likely cost you a lot of cash but it is well worth it. When you see the torture scene at the end you'll know exactly what i meant.
See also
Awards | FAQ | User Ratings | External Reviews | Metacritic Reviews
