This Halloween season, enjoy a selection of vampire films curated by Deutsche Kinemathek as part of their “Wild, Weird, Bloody. German Genre Films of the 70s” retrospective. Vampires and mortals are welcome to join for a special double bill of Hans W. Geißendörfer’s Jonathan (1970), followed by Ulli Lommel’s Tenderness of the Wolves (1973). Hans W. Geissendörfer, Jonathan A political parable of Germany’s 1960s protest movement, Jonathan is set in an undefined past, when a vampire count ruled a small city and its surrounding lands. The bloodlusty count and his followers target the young, so a group of students plans a revolution, choosing Jonathan as their leader. He ventures to the castle on a reconnaissance mission, but his journey is disrupted by violent obstacles—an amuse-bouche compared to the bloody excesses that await him in the count’s abode. Ulli Lommel, Tenderness of the Wolves In a post-war German city, Haarmann, a seasoned criminal, is recruited as a police informant. He uses the cover this position affords him to prey on young boys, luring them into his garret before killing them with a bite to the neck and turning their bodies into sausages. Everyone in town loves Haarmann’s meats, from black marketeers to the police inspector, but the tide turns when a nosy neighbor starts putting two and two together. Both films are in German with English subtitles.
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