Very best movie i ever watch

Sick Product of a Sick System

A very feeble attempt at affirmatie action

it is finally so absorbing because it plays like a lyrical road odyssey that’s also a detective story.

You might think that Antibodies is very similar to Silence of the Lambs. I've even heard one person describing it as a rip-off of it, but I don't see that in Antibodies. The only similarities is that the serial-killer (here a revolting paedophile, instead of a harmless cannibal) and the detective feature key scenes across bars. That's it! Antibodies is more about solving the case of a murdered little girl who the serial killer refuses to admit to killing. Whereas the Silence of the Lambs was more about Jodie Foster on the tail of a whole new serial killer altogether! That being said, of course Antibodies is not as great as the Silence of the Lambs, but it is a super solid serial killer thriller that offers so much more than you'd imagine.Antibodies is dangerously under-rated. It seems to me that hardly anyone has seen it and I can't understand why. I came across it on IMDb by accident and the poster caught my eye with its sinister focal image and clinical background. There's no reason why Antibodies should not appeal to mass audiences, other than it being in German which lazy people (who have probably not even given subtitled films a chance!) send away. Antibodies looks amazing, it's made on a very decent budget, has fantastic acting and a wonderfully twisty script. At two hours long Antibodies never sags and I was even kind of sad to see it end because it's such a gripping experience.Antibodies grabs you by the throat from the stylish opening where the mad man's apartment is stormed by police officers. Here we're bombarded with religious imagery which can often seem a bit pompous, but in Antibodies it serves a very intelligent purpose and only adds to the brilliant screenplay. We're given striking imagery of a naked psychopath and it could've easily leaped out of a Hollywood film with its big-budget feel. However unlike most Hollywood productions it features an edgy screenplay as well as great visuals. It's no surprise that Hollywood is eating this up! What the screenplay does so well is getting into the minds of its characters. Our detective is no less interesting than the psychopath himself (well maybe slightly, but psychopaths have an unfair advantage of being interesting). We're let into the detective's everyday life and we see his strengths and flaws as a characters. No doubt the remake will feature a pure detective, which will completely miss the whole idea of the film. I loved seeing his character change from being cool and collected and then being completely tormented by Gabriel (the psychopath, who is definitely no angel).Just like in the Silence of the Lambs, the interrogation scenes feature astonishingly gripping dialogue as we become as entangled in the mystery as much as the detective is. There are also some very interesting uses of camera angles. In fact, the whole film moves at a great pace and has a speedy energy which you wouldn't expect from a film that lasts two hours. Antibodies never drags and you always care. The film is never afraid to be cruel and brutal in its characterisation and it's right not to hold back. It's important to note that people like Gabriel do exist and we can't just shut the out!There are a few jaw-dropping twists at the end which only show off the brilliant nature of the screenplay. There are some very intense sequences that had me on the edge of my seat. The character of the detective is also never ignored and he rightly remains central to the story as we see him being led into temptation amongst other things. Antibodies is a thrilling experience and a high-class serial killer thriller. It certainly has the dark elements of horror like the Silence of the Lambs has, yet it adds a brilliant spin on the sub-genre that should have you on the edge of your seat. This is top-notch entertainment with a heart at the centre of it. See it before Hollywood squashes it!

This was a pretty good police thriller. Someone recommended it as a horror, but really, there is nothing to promote horror in the film. It is, though, promoting all kind of nasty feelings.The story is pretty complex, but shortened to extreme, it is about a small village cop who goes to meet a captured serial killer in order to determine if the (only) sexual murder that took place in their small catholic community is the murderer's doing or not. You see, as an outstandingly nice person, he needs to know that none of the people in his village are the authors of such a heinous crime.From then on, it's pretty much Silence of the Lambs, only a lot better, since German killers are clearly more scary than American ones, albeit not so flashy. There is even a jab when the killer first meets the cop he says "who did you expect? Hannibal Lecter?". And it was something very creepy about such a nice guy that is surrounded by assholes and still kept his cool all the time. I would have tortured and killed someone that would kill my dog, accidentally or not.For a German film, I thought it was very well done with top notch performances, production quality and overall feeling. I do have some issues with it, though. Firstly, the name is so misleading. I was rooting for a biological horror film and I got this. Then it was really long for a slow thriller, two hours long. Shorter would have been better, I say. And lastly the Bible quoting ending. Was that truly necessary?Bottom line: a nice thriller, with great performances. André Hennicke, interpreting the killer, is like a German Robert Knepper. So, if you can imagine a Silence of the Lambs with no girls, with Robert Knepper as the killer and probably Nicholas Cage as the cop (replaying his Wicker Man role) you would get a pretty similar US remake.

Many of the reviews for the film draws a comparison between this film and Silence of the Lambs. I'll start there as well. The similarity in plot is glaring--an inexperienced law enforcement officer uses a serial killer's fascination with their vulnerability to solve a crime.However, the two films have very different flavors--I guess that's the best way I can describe it. Both have their strengths--Silence of the Lambs has a better structure, pacing, arguably the better cinematography, set design...it is also a more traditional thriller. Because the killer is yet to be caught, there's an imminent threat and constraint on time throughout the movie.Antibodies is more of a psychological drama than Silence of the Lambs. In its core, the film is about a man's struggle with his competence: competence as a father, a husband, a Catholic, a cop, and as a town leader of sorts. It is more subtle, and uses a man's transformation and his growing fear as a means to progress the story, rather than successive uncovering of clues or what-not.The film questions morality, human nature, Catholicism, divinity, etc. in a pretty interesting way--almost reminds me of The Exorcist in its thematic expression of sin, evil, and guilt. By the way, it comes off very clear to me that the film maker is a Catholic, even just in his exploration of guilt and sin. The ending makes it obvious. Don't let that put you off (if you're the type that would get put off by it), however, as it's not overwhelming--it's done in a very tasteful and subtle way that builds up the character than really anything else.Film structure is not as good as SOTL (but that's a really high bar to be compared to)--the opening is pretty awesome, but the movie lets its pacing loosen for a little while after that. The construction and editing does get tighter as the movie progresses--the lead-up to the ending is suffocating as the tension reaches its peak.Acting is very competent from the two leads. I generally like the job that the rest of the cast has done as well. Cinematography is very good.The only thing that I still haven't made up my mind about is the ending--whether I like it or not. I guess what happens to the main character makes sense to me thematically, but I just didn't like the execution. The CGI was distracting and the helicopter was a bit overly-dramatic for me.Overall, I do recommend it. It's a very good, solid film--highly above average both in its genre and in overall film industry.

Only the second film by the former editor of the legendary German movie fanzine X-TRO, Antibodies (aka: Antikörper) is an assured and suspenseful work which, while it willingly acknowledges its obvious indebtedness to Hollywood models, still manages to strikes out convincingly on its own. The most obvious inspiration behind Christian Alvart's film is The Silence Of The Lambs (1991), to which explicit and grimly affectionate allusion ("What did you expect? Hannibal Lecter?") is made by killer Gabriel Engel (André Hennicke) at one point early on during his captivity. Restrained in conditions which recall those featuring in Jonathan Demme's movie, visited too by a similarly awed and repelled police investigator, Engel actually gives a performance less self-conscious than the much-imitated Anthony Hopkins'. And, because of the latitude of German cinema, where the precise detailing of paedophilic lust rape is more permissible as a drama demands, it is all the more disturbing in the telling. Watching this film, where the principal and community are wracked equally with guilt and blame, one easily recalls that this is the national cinema which earlier produced another monstrous child murderer, that of Fritz Lang's M, and indeed is a country where communal guilt is never very far below the surface.Just as Clarice Starling needs her Lecter, so Schmizt needs his Engel to help solve a case. Having already killed 14, most of whom were young boys, Engel offers his own tantalising clues and hints as to where the other killer may be found. But, as he says, "Evil... is infectious," and soon Schmizt begins to question his own moral certainties, before ultimately basing his judgement on the only firm foundation he knows - the Old Testament, a process which involves a particularly painful scene of self mutilation by way of penance, as well as providing doctrinal justification for the suspenseful final scenes.Antibodies is a film which never slackens its tension, and which avoids completely the flabby sentimentalising or overcooked heroics which often mars the American thriller product. Silence Of The Lambs contained more certainties than we are provided with here. Even though it gave its audience an extreme form of serial killer, in the form of 'Buffalo Bill', one both flamboyant and rock inspired, it instantly made a stereotype of itself, and it was this 'respect' of sorts by the audience that the director has said he was keen to avoid. Like Silence Of The Lambs, Se7en and the rest of their bloodline, Antibodies parades a notable killer's lair of its own as well, although any artefacts on show are less disturbing than the ultimate meaning of the 14 red squares drawn by Engel on the wall, or the spare, clean white tiles of his torture room.At the centre of such films is inevitably a duel between killer and cop, and here the two main parts receive terrific performances, Hennicke mightily disturbing as the gloating and manipulative serial killer, writing his books of blood, and Reedus drawn and haunted as the cop on the edge. As is often the case in this sort of film, a troubled parallel is drawn between them, a process highlighted in the first instance by a change in Reedus' lovemaking, as one whose psyche is increasingly affected by the killer's manipulative mind games. And when the depressed cop buys a suit on impulse, from a shop woman with whom he later sleeps in aggressive fashion, we are reminded of how moral codes can be put and 'worn' almost as one would clothes, until one "can't tell where the suit ends and the man begins." But by the same mark are never the less separate, and can be peeled back to reveal the real creature underneath, or changed at will.The signs that accompany the disturbed personality are more than just at that mundane level however. We are reminded in this film of the "'Holy Trinity' of serial killers: playing with fire, tormenting animals and bed-wetting" - some signs of which the tortured cop discovers, with growing alarm, occurring within his own family. As mentioned above, a strong religious thread runs through the film, of which this is only another aspect. Schmizt's family are devoted church-going folk, bible quotations play an especial significance and at one point the cop seeks to make his confession. But God's benign influence is ultimately conspicuous by its absence rather than influence, the final resolution less due to any supernatural grace than human doubt. In fact, in interview, director Alvart has expressed his serial killer in terms of the criminal representing 'total doubt', whilst drawing a parallel between religious fanaticism and the extremes of criminal behaviour, each with their respective compulsions.In short, Antibodies is well worth seeking out, as a serial killer film that's both thought provoking and reasonably gripping - and can also be taken as a possible antidote to Hannibal Rising. Alvart is clearly a talent to watch (his previous, and first film, Curiosity And The Cat (1999) was a little seen - at least in the UK - but well thought of suspense flick, that also featuring corroding suspicion and sadomasochistic overtones). One hopes to see more of his work.