Angst (1983)
- General info
- Available formats
- Synopsis:
- A man is released from prison after serving ten years for murdering an elderly woman. He quickly begins to feel the compulsion to kill again. After failing to murder a cab driver, he flees and discovers a secluded rural home, where a young woman lives with her sick mother and disabled brother. He then begins to take out his sadistic pleasures on them, attempting to hold them hostage, while thinking of his troubled childhood with his abusive mother and grandmother...
- Actors:
- Erwin Leder, Silvia Rabenreither, Edith Rosset, Rudolf Götz, Kuba, Renate Kastelik, Hermann Groissenberger, Claudia Schinko, Beate Jurkowitsch, Rosa Schandl, Rolf Bock, Emil Polaczek, Helmut Hrdina, Adolf Hagmann, Karl Riepl, Gunther Dietz, Elisabeth Fez, Paula Elkins, Tennesee Gelinek, Valerian Tomisch
- Directors:
- Gerald Kargl
- Producers:
- Gerald Kargl, Josef Reitinger-Laska
- Voiced By:
- Robert Hunger-Bühler, Karin Springer, Josefine Lakatha
- Writers:
- Zbigniew Rybczynski, Gerald Kargl
- Aka:
- Fear
- Genres:
- Classics, Drama, Horror, Thrillers
- Countries:
- Austria
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Reviews (1) of Angst
Fear, Up Close - Angst review by griggs
Angst drops you straight into a killer’s head and doesn’t let you out. The voice-over tracks his twisted thoughts while the camera glides behind him like a ghost, unnerving and precise. At just 75 minutes, it wastes no time — every second feels sharp, deliberate, and a bit too close for comfort.
There are no names or backstories, just raw obsession and impulse. The steadicam work gives it this horrible intimacy, like you’re seeing through his eyes but wishing you weren’t. It’s the kind of film that makes you tense without realising why — and the sound has a lot to do with it.
The electronic score pulses and loops with eerie detachment. It wraps around the images like a fever dream, amplifying every breath and movement until it’s sensory overload. Sound and image pull you under, their rhythm both mechanical and disturbingly human.
Strangely, they didn’t bother translating the title for English audiences, and rightly so. “Angst” means “fear” in German — and that’s exactly what this is. Not anxiety, not dread, just fear in its purest, most physical form.