Grimm Love and Inhumane Delicacies: A Movie Review

Writers: T. S. Faull.

Grimm Love is a film which is being distributed by Lightning Entertainment on DVD next month. The film covers the murder case involving the real life characters Armin Meiwes and Bernd Jurgen Brandes. Meiwes ate the later in an instance of cannibalism. This subject matter has spawned the films The Man Who Ate His Lover and Cannibal. Non-fiction, very disturbing, and truly horrifying, Grimm Love is a homo-erotic love story involving grotesque acts of butchery.

This film was completed in 2006 and then released in Germany as Rohtenburg. There are numerous sources which cover this story in more depth, but centrally the film involves two very lonely and very twisted human beings. Both are homosexuals. One character (Brandes) is involved in a romantic relationship and the other (Meiwes) is slowly coming to terms with his homosexuality after the death of this overly protective mother. Meiwes, who is called Oliver Hartwin in the film, comes to terms with this realization in a very perverse way - cannibalism. Castration is the beginning and death is the finale.

This reviewer has always believed that non-fiction or real life is always much more disturbing than any fictional story. The depths of depravity in which man is able to go knows no bounds and this is reflected in the story behind the film. Partially biopic in material, the emotional torture in which Meiwes undergoes is only outdone by the expression of his own pain. Trapped, controlled, and manipulated to serve his mother, Meiwes was traumatized to such a state that his development never transcended the emotional age of seven or eight. Lonely, depressed and seeking companionship, Meiwes looks for a love object to satisfy his emerging and previously repressed sexual desires. These new expressions have been suppressed for so long that they come out in a twisted way and the film truly does not hold back in the portrayals of violent acts, nor the eating of flesh e.g. a penis.

This reviewer has seen and reviewed hundreds of films, including horror. However, this is one of the first to truly horrify, shock, disgust, and sickly enthrall this viewer in quite some time. This film is like watching a bloody train wreck come on, with no way to fix the tracks. As well, the story shows viewers the trauma which lead both of these characters to a violent explosion. Brandes was made to feel guilty for his mother's suicide and his homosexuality was rebuked by his father. Meiwes' childhood has already been described and both of these human beings seems deeply troubled, which is likely what brought them together. The final climactic seen involving castration is very bloody; thankfully, there is some subtly to the material.

On to the technical merits, Grimm Love shows interesting camera and film usage, as past remembrances are shown in grainy, yellowed film. The film stock is suitable to the '70s in which the character's childhood took place. Present time is shown in deeper blues and the film has a dreamlike quality in certain scenes. Long shots, closeups, and exteriors are all shot with ease and the characterizations are extremely well done and evocative as Meiwes brings up feelings of pity, disgust and sympathy. Branes, who is known as Simon Grombeck in the film, brings up similar emotions. As well, the dialogue, settings, and the narrative by Keri Russell are mostly well done, but sometimes distracting and overly sad.

Grimm Love is available now on Blockbuster-on-demand, with a DVD release September 28th. This film is for those with an interest in psychology, criminal activity, and the most resolute of gorehounds. Worth repeating, Grimm Love is very disturbing centrally for the acts of cannibalism and for the trauma impacted on the characters in the film. Get ready to eat this one up in just over a month.

Overall: 8 out of 10 (-1 for the breakup of the film by the narration, -1 for no afterthought to the consequences to Meiwes' actions - not mentioned).

The film's website:

The Grimm Love Official Website