It's hard to say if the makers really meant it all seriously or if they tried to find out how much silliness you can sell to an unsuspecting audience. It's advertised as a horror movie, but apart from one graphic brutal death and some harsh mutilations there's not much of a horrific or tension-filled atmosphere, the pace is rather slow and the story is more bizarre than terrifying or even creepy. Maybe a touch of humor could have helped (the goings-on being quite hilarious anyway), but the movie was totally devoid of even the slightest tongue-in-cheekness, taking itself evidently dead-serious.
There are lots of movies where for some super-natural reasons suddenly wishes come true (usually with a steep price!), by way of a strange box delivered at the door or a secret room in an old house. But here they introduce the most weird wish-fulfilling instrument ever: a hole in the wall. Not big, but tiny as a little mouse-hole. Hermann finds out that he can pull little notes out off this hole. One note says: "touch me", and he does so with his finger, caressing the hole. Now I don't want to give the impression that I see Freudian innuendos everywhere I look, but here it's very, very hard to ignore. Especially when the hole starts to talk in a husky female voice, asks Hermann to kiss it and at some time even to have sex with it, which he does (really!!). I'm not at all a puritan, but somehow this all felt (and looked!) extremely awkward and distasteful.
I suppose that everyone involved in this production meant well and worked hard, but I cannot for the life of me imagine that anyone was satisfied with the result, let alone felt proud of it. Maybe they should have gone for a comedy-version, all the ingredients were there.
There are lots of movies where for some super-natural reasons suddenly wishes come true (usually with a steep price!), by way of a strange box delivered at the door or a secret room in an old house. But here they introduce the most weird wish-fulfilling instrument ever: a hole in the wall. Not big, but tiny as a little mouse-hole. Hermann finds out that he can pull little notes out off this hole. One note says: "touch me", and he does so with his finger, caressing the hole. Now I don't want to give the impression that I see Freudian innuendos everywhere I look, but here it's very, very hard to ignore. Especially when the hole starts to talk in a husky female voice, asks Hermann to kiss it and at some time even to have sex with it, which he does (really!!). I'm not at all a puritan, but somehow this all felt (and looked!) extremely awkward and distasteful.
I suppose that everyone involved in this production meant well and worked hard, but I cannot for the life of me imagine that anyone was satisfied with the result, let alone felt proud of it. Maybe they should have gone for a comedy-version, all the ingredients were there.