Violent Shit

Violent Shit is a 1989 West German horror film written and directed by Andreas Schnaas. It is widely regarded as one of the landmark underground splatter films in German DIY horror, notable for its ultraviolent gore effects and shocking content.

A young boy named Karl Berger Sr. (a surname given in the sequel) murders his abusive mother with a meat cleaver after she beats him for returning home late. Twenty years later, in the mid-1970s, the imprisoned Karl is being transported to an unspecified location by the police, but manages to kill the officers and escape into the wilderness, somehow acquiring a cleaver in the process. Over the course of several days, Karl commits a series of murders across the countryside, mutilating and occasionally cannibalizing his victims. After one double homicide, Karl faints and flashes back to the day he murdered his mother, revealing he had been coerced into killing her by a demon (which a line of dialogue indicates might be his father) he had encountered in the cellar after being locked in it.

At one point, Karl also encounters an apparition of Jesus crucified in the forest, which he hacks open, and crawls inside. After this encounter, Karl commits an additional dual murder outside a church then collapses in a field. His skin (which had been inexplicably decaying throughout the film) rots off, and he dies by ripping himself open, revealing a baby covered in blood.

• Karl Inger as Karl Berger Sr. (as K. The Butcher Shitter)
• Gabi Bäzner
• Wolfgang Hinz as Wolfgang
• Volker Mechter
• Christian Biallas
• Uwe Boldt
• Marco Hegele
• Lars Warncke
• Werner Knifke
• Andreas Schnaas as Landscaper #2
• Steve Aquilina
• Bettina X.
• Maren Y.
• Beate Z.

Violent Shit never received a theatrical run. Instead, it premiered in late 1989 at a handful of underground horror film screenings across Germany, primarily organized by regional fanzines and ‘garage cinema’ events. These midnight screenings attracted a devoted cult audience, often growing into riotous occasions because of the film’s extreme imagery. No records exist of box‐office figures, as admission was usually a flat fee covered by the organizers, with no official ticketing system.^[1]

Violent Shit received mostly negative reviews from critics upon its release. HorrorNews.net criticized the film's thin plot, amateurish sound and camerawork, but commended the film for its gore sequences and for its creativity on such a small budget, writing, "If you want your horror films to have some substance, then you might want to look elsewhere, but otherwise you will be well‐served".^[2] Reviewing the DVD release for the Violent Shit Collection, Nathaniel Thompson from Mondo Digital called the film "a nearly plotless VHS wonder", criticizing the film's technical ineptitude and unconvincing gore effects.^[3] Brett Gallman from Oh, the Horror! praised the film's raw violence, stating, "However crude the rest of this amateur production may be, there’s no denying the power of this gore-soaked mayhem. Both Schnaas’s willingness to push boundaries and his attention to squeamish detail are noteworthy... forcing the audience to either confront it head on or look away in disgust." Gallman concluded his review by writing, "Underestimate and judge the surface of Violent Shit at your own risk because this is the stuff of pure, uncut nightmare fuel."^[4]

Violent Shit: The Movie (2015) – A name‐only “remake” directed by Luigi Pastore, co‐written by Lucio Massa and Emanuele Barbera. This Italian-German co-production has no narrative connection to Schnaas’s original; Schnaas was not involved. It follows a new killer named “Karl the Butcher” on a slasher rampage set in rural Italy.^[5]

• Violent Shit at IMDb