Horrifyingly exquisite, this movie brings to life the lurid true story of Jürgen Bartsch (Tobias Schenke), a gay German teenage serial killer who sexually molested and murdered a number of young boys during the 1960s. This dark, troubling, chilling portrait looks into the heart of a tortured gay teenager, whose sexual obsession led him to commit multiple murders. Framed by confessions (culled from the transcripts and letters of the actual case in the early 1960s) of the captured 19-year-old Jürgen Bartsch, Pieck's artfully stunning biography flashes back to the boy's childhood (where he is movingly played by angel-faced Sebastian Urzendowsky).
Sexually repressed by religion and his strict, emotionally cruel adoptive parents, and confused by a sexually abusive Catholic priest, Bartsch caves into his growing, truly dark impulses. By 15, exclusively drawn to prepubescent boys, he realises the only way to indulge his sexual cravings and not be caught or punished is to murder his prey. While luring boys to a secret hideout by night, Bartsch works in his father's butcher's shop by day. He appears to lack friends and his family have no inkling of his diabolical doings.
Although a frightening and shocking story, director Kai S. Pieck is a master storyteller and visionary. With some of the most guiltily erotic moments put to screen, pulling few punches yet not exploiting the story's gory aspects, he sucks you right into Bartsch's tragic existence, ultimately painting a compelling argument for gay rights now. If only Bartsch had felt accepted by his family, religion and society, he may have matured into a well-adjusted gay man. Alas, he didn't.
