Suicide
Is it wrong to film and broadcast a suicide if the participant has requested it? That's the question posed by this disturbing German horror feature, which presents unflinching images of suicide in a morally thorny storyline. Director Raoul W. Heimrich stars with Yvonne De Bark as a couple who films strangers' suicides and shows them on their Web site (the film's original title wasFinalcut.com). The pair wrestles with remaining impassive observers during these intensely intimate (and often gruesome) final moments and the need to get "good footage"--a problem that solves itself when they decide to involve themselves in the suicides. Filmed mostly in a disturbingly voyeuristic POV through Heimrich's camcorder,Suicideranks with works by fellow German filmmakers Jörg Buttgereit (Schramm) and Michael Haneke (Funny Games) as one of the most challenging horror films in recent years, and should prove difficult to watch for all save the most hardened viewers. Troma's DVD offers the director's cut (in German with English subtitles) as well as more light-hearted "Tromatic" extras (including trailers forTales from the Crapperand others), which clash with the main feature's oppressively dark tone.--Paul Gaita