A tension that is always palpable in a good thriller that is worth watching on Prime Video!
A murderous calendar, a tormented killer (Sabin Tambrea), suspense without interruption, a structured screenplay and an actress who has her character drawn on her face (Luise Heyer) are the brilliant features of The Calendar Killer, a film with a serial killer directed by Adolfo J. Kolmerer available on Prime Video from January 16, 2025.
Based on the best-seller by Sebastian Fitzek, which in addition to being gripping, offers its "material" to deal with the theme of violence against women in the form of domestic abuse. It disorients the audience by showing the fragility of its characters and a serial killer among the most unsuspected who is terrorizing the city of Berlin, the latter manages to earn all the sweetness of the viewer and then terrorizes him in the last "handful of minutes".
The Calendar Killer is a dive into the last moments of Klara, indicated as the next victim of a serial killer
The director known for his previous works on series such as Sløborn E Oderbruch, is at the helm of this intriguing film, together with the screenwriter Susanne Schneider they offer a solid narrative and prepare a tension that is always palpable. The plot drags us into the personal torments of all the main characters, starting from a premise waved in the opening scene that immediately makes us know the killer's modus operandi: he writes the date of death of the victims in blood on the wall.
Klara (played by Luise Heyer) will die by midnight unless she kills her husband. This is the rule established by the infamous serial killer nicknamed "the calendar killer" (a disturbing example of Salvatore delle Donne) who is terrorizing the city. The killer offers his potential victims two options: either they are killed, or their partner will die on a specific date in the calendar. Klara wakes up in a garage with a death sign on the wall. Since those who know they will die are already dying, terrified she calls a safety line for single women returning home. Jules answers her call for help and slowly - together with the audience - learns about the woman's unhappy experience, continually mistreated by her husband.
A tension that is always palpable in a good thriller that is worth watching
Direction and photography and, in general, the plot, tend to be in constant movement and mysterious but always present dark tones. The photography remains low-key and the scene lives in tones characterized by low brightness with few clear details, returning to color only in some sequences - those misleading for the viewer (with bluish and falsely relaxing tones like the one in which Jules approaches "his daughter") or the reddish ones, dominated by violence in the nightmare and ambivalent sequence relating to the "exclusive" evening with lots of masks planned by Klara's husband, which takes us back to Eyes Wide Shut.
A layered plot that, as viewers, makes us forget that The Calendar Killer is about a murderer and invites our minds to form ideas elsewhere. Between the darkness of the story and the crudeness of the situation, we are reminded that we are getting to know two lonely characters, who live in a state of incessant restlessness. They appear shocked on the phone, terrified in the middle of a calm night.
The Calendar Killer: evaluation and conclusion
The Calendar Killer is a good thriller built to be challenging with a phenomenal team of actors, which is worth watching. It retains the atmosphere of serial killer films but its focus is entirely shifted to human frailties. Adolfo J. Kolmerer achieves this by staging a story that deals with domestic violence and whose main secret is a protagonist who navigates and navigates her nightmare while she tells it to the man who is trying to help her.
The film is a long and discontinuous phone call that looks more like a dark therapy that takes place while we get to know Klara and Jules, but also Martin (Friedrich Mücke): all characters with mental disorders. But at the base, there is nothing that cannot be solved. The killer fades into the background, while in absolute evidence there is a dark and engaging long-distance psychotherapy that corresponds to a surprising introspective journey.
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