This alpine drama tells the story of a father and his three sons who unintentionally cause the death of two women on their remote farm and, in order to cover it up, have to eliminate more and more witnesses.
On one hand, the story has a moral lesson, because once they took the first wrong step, the main characters become entangled in more and more criminal acts. On the other hand, it is rooted in the political incorrectness of the time it was written, with clichés about the mentally handicapped, the rural population, and also Roma and Sinti. The ambiguity of the story aside, this is good craftsmanship with strong acting performances in particular from Maria Beck as the daughter who freezes in horror at her family's guilt, the Loonie (Claus Fuchs) and William Berger as the eldest son, who feels he has to show his younger brother (Herb Andress) how not to be a wimp, consumed by the ambition to finally run his father's (Peter Jacob) farm, at any price.
The film was no success in the cinema because it was too disturbing for many people. I'm not talking about the murders here, but for example the grandmother's funeral scene when the pretense of religiosity is exposed as hypocrisy. On the other hand, the attempt to sell it as a Zombie movie (with the alternative title "Der Irre vom Zombiehof" = "The Madman from the Zombie farm") to the horror audience was entirely misleading. This is a controversial movie, interesting, but with a target audience problem.
On one hand, the story has a moral lesson, because once they took the first wrong step, the main characters become entangled in more and more criminal acts. On the other hand, it is rooted in the political incorrectness of the time it was written, with clichés about the mentally handicapped, the rural population, and also Roma and Sinti. The ambiguity of the story aside, this is good craftsmanship with strong acting performances in particular from Maria Beck as the daughter who freezes in horror at her family's guilt, the Loonie (Claus Fuchs) and William Berger as the eldest son, who feels he has to show his younger brother (Herb Andress) how not to be a wimp, consumed by the ambition to finally run his father's (Peter Jacob) farm, at any price.
The film was no success in the cinema because it was too disturbing for many people. I'm not talking about the murders here, but for example the grandmother's funeral scene when the pretense of religiosity is exposed as hypocrisy. On the other hand, the attempt to sell it as a Zombie movie (with the alternative title "Der Irre vom Zombiehof" = "The Madman from the Zombie farm") to the horror audience was entirely misleading. This is a controversial movie, interesting, but with a target audience problem.