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Germany has one of the most important and at the same time one of the most curious histories when it comes to horror cinema. Germany was of course one of the birthplaces of the horror film with the early silent German expressionist era laying some the stylistic foundations of the genre with historic titles such as The Student of Prague (Der Student von Prag, 1913), Der Golem (1915), The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920) and Nosferatu (1922). Summarizing the history of the German film industry from a genre film perspective in the seminal book Immoral Tales: European Sex & Horror Movies, 1956-1984, authors Pete Tombs and Cathal Tohil go so far as to name Germany the “natural birthplace of the horror film”(1), specifically citing German-French film writer Lotte Eisner's 1952 study The Haunted Screen: Expressionism in the German Cinema and the Influence of Max Reinhardt. Eisner writes candidly about a “Germanic desire to submit to discipline, together with a certain proneness to Sadism”(2), which Eisner attributes to a “weird pleasure the German's take in evoking horror”(2). Many of the German expressionist pioneers continued to partake in this “weird pleasure” and work in horror throughout the 1920's such as Robert Wiene, director of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, who also helmed The Hands of Orlac (1924), F.W. Murnau who prior to Nosferatu had already directed The Haunted Castle (1921) and would later go onto Faust (1926), as well as Paul Leni with the genre anthology Waxworks (1924). Leni would also be one of the first German directors to bring the expressionist style to America with films like The Cat and the Canary (1927) and The Man Who Laughs (1928), the style of the silent German expressionist horrors directly influencing America's wildly popular 1930's horror boom and later noir with several top names from the German expressionist era emigrating to America during the rise of the Third Reich. Horror films, like most forms of cinema that weren't propaganda or the adventurous mountaineering-themed “Bergfilme” which Hitler loved (1), essentially vanished following Nazi control of Germany. Two rare genre titles did make it past propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels' inspection standards fascinatingly enough, a third adaptation of Poe's The Student of Prague (1935) and Fährmann Maria (Death and the Maiden, 1936). Even following Germany's post-war split into East and West, any semblance of the country's horror heritage or dark genre in general remained absent for well over a decade, West Germany not producing a full-on horror film until The Head (Die Nackte und der Satan, 1959) and later Horrors of Spider Island (Ein Toter hing im Netz, 1960). 1959 also saw the release of Der Frosch mit der Maske (The Frog With the Mask), the first “Krimi film” from studio Rialto Film, actually a Danish studio, based on the work of British crime fiction writer Edgar Wallace. So successful was the film with West German audiences that Rialto acquired the rights to more Wallace stories, the studio itself producing a total of 32 Wallace-sourced Krimi's with later Krimi films based on works by Wallace's son Bryan Edgar. Although occupying its own unique corner in genre film, itself an amalgamation various pulp and fantastic genres, the Krimi is more than just tangentially connected to horror. A major influence on the Italian Giallo film, the lurid plots and stylistic excess of the Krimi films saw German filmmakers freely indulging in the aforementioned “weird pleasure” Eisner wrote about, Tombs and Tohill describing the series of Wallace adaptations as “one of the few places where the old pre-war German cinematic talent for dark shadows, strange camera angles and gruesome violence was allowed to flourish.”(1). The Krimi trend lasted until 1972. West German screens again experienced a lengthy horror genre drought in the years the followed while neighboring continental European countries continued putting their own national stamps on the genre. While the Giallo flourished in Italy, the likes of Paul Naschy and Amando de Ossorio were firing on all cylinders in Spain and the French refined their erotic, fantastique horror, West Germany remained absent during European horror's 70's and early 80's creative peak. Although select titles such as Ulli Lommel's The Tenderness of Wolves (Die Zärtlichkeit der Wölfe, 1973) and Eckhart Schmidt's Der Fan (The Fan, 1982) represent some of the finest European genre film from these creative peak years, both were ultimately scattershot exceptions. Germany instead became one of Europe's 70's sex film capitals with series such as the massively successful Schoolgirl Report or Schulmädchen-Report films and similarly titled and themed “Report” films like Urlaubsreport (Swedish Love Games, 1971) and Krankenschwestern-Report (Nurse Report, 1971)(1). Similar to the UK, the early 80's also saw West Germany's sociopolitical climate drift more conservative, the timing of which perfectly synched with the burgeoning home video revolution. In a scenario not dissimilar to the UK's Video Nasties, the supposed corrupting influence of horror films on video tape had on the German youth become a chief target for moral crusaders. West Germany even drafted its own list of targeted and banned titles following outrage over imported genre fare such as The Evil Dead (1981), with filmmakers and even viewers facing threats of legal repercussion for putting “the forcefully opened body on celluloid... or admits to watching them”(3). Despite the best efforts of the state to shield the German public from even viewing horror films in the privacy of their own homes, the VHS medium proved a powerful difference maker. Similar to the bootleg trading of persecuted Video Nasty titles, an underground developed which ironically would make Germany very noticeable again on the worldwide horror market as the 80's drew to a close. Although its 1991 sequel suffered a more infamous fate in its home country at the hands of police, Jörg Buttgereit's Nekromantik (1987) was really the first film to make international horror fans aware of the German underground though word-of-mouth infamy and tales of its banning in every corner of the globe. Though lensed on Super 8 film, it was on bootleg videotape where Nekromantik gained its underground cult following. Much like the American DIY shot-on-video horror filmmakers, a new generation of German horror fans-turned filmmakers utilized the affordability of the format to shoot and have their films circulated. Come the 90's, German horror was not only back and internationally recognized, but from the German underground the new, much more extreme subgenre of “German splatter” emerged, enticing adventurous horror viewers with heightened levels of homemade gore effects. While Buttgereit technically became associated with the German shot-on-video directors by proxy, himself remaining dedicated to celluloid, the release of Black Past (1989), the debut video feature from Olaf Ittenbach, a film that like Nekromantik made the German underground a popular destination for tape-traders, solidified Ittenbach's name as one most synonymous with underground shot-on-video German splatter. An entirely self-taught filmmaker, special effects and make-up artist with a particular affinity for Lucio Fulci, Ittenbach citing Fulci's Zombie (1979) as his introduction to horror as well as Clive Barker (4), the forbidden climate around horror in 80's Germany fueled Ittenbach who stated “it was the time of the great wave of censorship in Germany, which motivated me to make my own uncut films”(5). Ittenbach began shooting on video in his teens. Early shorts such as as Deadly Night (1986), which Ittenbach shot at the age of 17, were essentially reels featuring Ittenbach and friend André Stryi, a close collaborator on Ittenbach's subsequent three feature films, showcasing Ittenbach's gore effects. Though achieved through fairly primitive means, Ittenbach's effects skills were already quite advanced and effective, Black Past, its final third in particular, gaining immediate cult infamy for not only its rather astonishing level of violence and blood splatter but the warped ingenuity of Ittenbach's gore as well. Ittenbach's profile was raised considerably both at home and abroad with his second video feature, the anthology The Burning Moon (1992). Similar to what happened with the police seizure of Buttgereit's Nekromantik 2 (1991), The Burning Moon was also caught up in legal and censorship cross hairs, the state going a step further than with Nekromantik 2 with Ittenbach not only receiving a 3000 DEM fine (3) but a police raid on his house as well (3), the original copies of The Burning Moon destroyed in the process (3). Yet in true underground fashion bootleg VHS copies of the film traveled everywhere from the US to Japan, The Burning Moon quickly becoming a legendary title in the German hard gore realm, the film's notorious “Hell” sequence one of the most-discussed among devotees of extreme cinema. The extreme violence and blood splatter which has marked Ittenbach's films has certainly won films like Black Past and The Burning Moon a legion of devoted gore fans. Many have even mentioned Ittenbach's third feature Premutos: The Fallen Angel (1997) in the same breath as Peter Jackson's Dead Alive (Braindead, 1992) in the upper echelon of humorous splatter films. Ittenbach's effects talents have even led to a second career in FX work on bigger budgeted productions, most notably for notorious fellow countryman Uwe Boll. At the same time the gore calling card has led to Ittenbach's work facing numerous barriers. The biggest in Germany continuing to be censorship, with domestic German releases of Ittenbach's films being severely cut and, in some instances, potentially illegal to possess (3). The censorship issue however is not unique to Germany. Fully uncut versions of Ittenbach's films remained difficult to obtain officially even as the video age...