Nekromantik II -------------- The return of the loving dead (not for the squeamish) I was incredulous when I heard that Nekromantik 2 was better than Nekromantik, since Nekromantik is one of my favorite films. But given that genius Jorge Buttgereit also directed II, I was hopeful. Thankfully, my hopes were far surpassed as Nekromantik II is as good and may be better than I. II has all of the gore, all of the philosophy, and all of the religious imagery and dark beauty of I. The film opens with our heroine digging a man. Needless to say, he is dead and she is digging him out of the cemetery. She proceeds to clean him up in a gentle, loving manner and the obligatory love scene ensues. The affair is blossoming when our heroine notices that she is simultaneously falling in love with a living man! Here, the audience is torn, secretly hoping that our heroine can find new love, especially since the affair with our dead hero cannot last forever due to rapid decomposition. Yet at the same time, we fear that the new boyfriend will somehow fuck up the relationship since he is, after all, a living man. Who will win? We have hope for the new boyfriend since he is generally quiet, strange, and malleable to her will. They visit typical amusements like the carnival and the zoo, where the director focuses on the creepy and unusual. A capital scene lends the audience insight as to why our heroine prefers the dead. A man who is a birdwatcher is droning on at breakfast to his date at length, non-stop, about the intricacies of bird-watching, various and sundry species of birds, their habitats, etc., etc., zzz. Plus, the fact that they are eating runny, poached eggs is kind of gross. Overall, the film is visually interesting, with many white and black foreground scenes on red and yellow backgrounds. Things are going swimmingly until one night when the new boyfriend intrudes unannounced upon a chick nite that our heroine is hosting! The girlfriends are all nekromantiks. These silent beauties are sitting around eating the left-over box of chocolates that he brought over the night they first scrogged (needless to say that sex scene was pretty boring until our heroine rotates to the top and starts imagining that she is making love to her dead boyfriend). Our girlfriends are watching film clips of seals swimming and playing, followed by a seal autopsy video . I get the impression that these women are just interested in all aspects of life of death and want to know everything. They explore topics of death with a clinical and deep fascination, yet they also see the beauty in life and death. I believe that if these women were truly sick bastards, they would have skipped the parts about the seal's life and just gone to the autopsy scene. Also, no derogatory emotional displays were evident (ex: woo-hoo!ing or laughing) instead there was general silence, fear, and weeping. Very interesting scene. As soon as the boyfriend shows up, all the chicks vacate en masse of course. He asks our heroine what the chicks were watching. She demurs, but he insists. He checks out 20 seconds of the film, shuts it off, and accuses her and her friends of being sick (ironically, he claims that he is a film dubber, yet makes sound-fx for pornos including the sound of a scrotum slapping upon buttocks). She defends the film and says it is less sick that porno. Who can truly say, as the audience wonders whether the delicate blossom of young love can survive the harsh wind of philosophical differences. I won't give up the ending (unless you really want to know), but it is great. I just love happy endings *sniff*. This film is so much more than most gore films. There is an inner beauty and message to the film and the cinematography and effects are great.