The Death King
The Death King
| 25 January 1990 (USA)
The Death King Trailers

Seven episodes, each taking place on a different day of the week, on the theme of suicide and violent death.

Reviews
Karry Best movie of this year hands down!
AshUnow This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.
Hayden Kane There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes
Mathilde the Guild Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.
Peter Mckain I am initially underwhelmed by Der Todesking (The Death King). So we are presented with 7 stories, one for each day of the week. Every story is depicting suicide, with cuts of a slowly decaying corpse(made from pigs guts and strawberry pudding) in between. So what we basically get is an anti-suicide movie made on a shoe- string budget it does work quite well for what its trying to achieve with the budget they had. However, Its a bit of a hit and miss with some of the stories some of the scenes tend to drag on and one day which was Thursday was just shots of the bridge in Germany called the suicide bridge. The director himself said that its very hard to capture what he had in his head due to the budget restraints. We also have a sneaky homage to the Ilsa films which are banned in Germany and a nice shootout at a cinema. The decomposition of the corpse looks great and its nice to watch you'd almost think it was real. The same skeleton was used from necromantic and the scene was shot at 1 frame per hour. As for sound, they repeat a rather depressing song over and over but it doesn't really get annoying. check it out if you're a film student or interested in the themes presented here but i can't recommend it personally.
debauchery-1 I wouldn't say I was exactly floored by this movie. The version I had was extremely over-played, and without subtitles. Not that it matters much, since it is an "art" film. As for this movie, I have seen better from the likes of Jorg. If you're looking for a movie like Necromantik, I wouldn't recommend this, nor would I recommend his other movie HOT LOVE. The reason why I've rated this movie a five is because I do like certain parts of the film. The decomposing corpse is particularly good and life-like, and the concept is okay (from what I understand), but it lacks importance, and it's definitely over-played. If you're looking for something that is a good "art" movie, I'd recommend Un Chein Andelou, or Tetsuo: The Iron Man. Both are remarkable pieces of film art.
HumanoidOfFlesh "Der Todesking"-Jorg Buttgereit's second full-length feature film(the first one was notorious "Nekromantik")has no central character or characters,but instead thematic continuity in the act of suicide.Divided into days of the week,it comprises of a series of set-pieces,each of which featuring the self-destruction of a complete stranger.Yes,the production values are low and it's disturbing,but in many ways "Der Todesking" is extremely effective.It makes you think which is sometimes more important than pure entertainment.Unlike the other Buttgereit's works it isn't very gory,but there are some unpleasant images like castration scene in the Tuesday episode,a decomposing corpse and various acts of suicide.The last(Sunday)episode is so depressing and full of pain!-just amazing if you want my opinion.10 out of 10-check out this post-modernism shocker!Disturbing art in the purest form!
Infofreak 'Der Todesking' is my first experience with Jorg Buttgereit. I have no idea whether it is representative of his other work or not, but after watching this puzzling movie I intend finding out. A verbal description of this movie does it very little justice. Scenes of suicides by various individuals are interspersed with footage of a decomposing corpse. That really gives you NO idea how thought provoking, repellant AND beautiful this movie is in places. I'm not sure if I fully understand Buttgereit's "message" or indeed, if there really IS one. But I did get something from watching this movie. It is much more than just a collection of disturbing images. Maybe it is like a painting or a poem, and everybody who experiences comes away with their own ideas or emotions about what it's "about". Whatever your reaction to 'Der Todesking' I don't think you will regret having watched it. There are moments in this movie that will stay with you for a VERY long time... I was fascinated. A movie that blurs the distinctions between art and exploitation, and makes you question yourself. Yes, I was impressed.