Abgeschnitten (AKA Cut Off) is a brutal serial killer thriller, which follows Paul Herzfeld (Moritz Bleibtreu, Run, Lola, Run), a professor and police coroner, who discovers his daughter is in serious danger. Rather nastily (though it does serve the purpose of getting Herzfeld to take things seriously), the clues towards Hannah’s whereabouts and possible rescue start with one he finds inside a mutilated corpse. And it leads to more corpses and more danger, while he tries to find his daughter as soon as possible.
But Herzfeld cannot find the rest of those clues. After that first body, and the clue it contains, all the others are back on his home island many miles away, which is cut off from the mainland by a serious storm. Consequently, investigations and autopsies are carried out by Linda (Jasna Fritzi Bauer), a young illustrator who just happens to be nearby, guided by the anxious father on the phone.
So with clues in bodies and remote investigation via a young female partner, Cut Off is reminiscent at times of both the Saw series and The Bone Collector. Though I must say the story was so well executed that I barely noticed until it reached the end. Not knowing who the killer is for most of the film, let alone whether he’s a risk to the heroes, there is a very strong thriller element as well as the forensic investigation.
So it’s no surprise the novel it was based on was a collaboration between Sebastian Fitzek, writer of bestselling gritty thrillers, and Michael Tsokos, forensic and medical professor. The plot very successfully blends both, and is both exciting and intelligently written.
Related from FrightFest 2019: Freaks
Christian Alvart is established by now as a director of horror films. Often films with a sci-fi slant such as Antibodies and Pandorum. He brings very effective tension to Cut Off, with a dire sense of urgency and darkness that might not otherwise have been so apparent in what is essentially a forensic-based investigation. It’s reinforced by the storm, of course, which is bound to make any situation extra dramatic, even if there hadn’t been a killer and/or a kidnapper on the loose.
Just because Cut Off was made by a horror director though doesn’t necessarily mean this film is either scary or gory. There are several shocking autopsy scenes, but interestingly, very little that happens to living people is explicit at all.
That said, the film is scary in as far as we can feel for the two main characters, Linda and Paul Herzfeld. We get to know them at least a little before the plot kicks off and we understand both their personalities and the pressures they are under. I had huge sympathy for both, especially for Herzfeld in the scene where he read his daughter’s name inside something he pulled from a murder victim. The otherwise innocent bystanders who are brought in to help Herzfeld each have their own reasons to be there (or not), not just Linda. It’s a very tightly knitted dramatis personae. The cast is superb, and it was especially good to see Moritz Bleibtreu (on the phone) again.
Unlike those films I mentioned earlier, the Saw series and The Bone Collector, the themes in Cut Off are a little more complex, as it becomes apparent as the story progresses. The consequences of one’s decisions, and their impact on one’s relationships often crop up in cinema, but it was refreshing to see a plot in which things were not presumed to be straightforward or black and white, nor with any preaching. There was also a plot strand which isn’t tied up at the end. It made me wonder if the book authors had a sequel or spin-off in mind), but it could just as easily be left that way to confirm that tidy resolutions aren’t always to be expected.
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