The Insane Cannibal (2025 film)

The Insane Cannibal Der wahnsinnige Kannibale
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Claudia Schweiger
Screenplay by	Viktor Reichert
Based on	Forest Cannibal by Sigmund Scharf
Produced by	Claudia Schweiger Rainer Bedorn
Starring	Marc Pommering Elisa Müller Matthias Baden Julia Aigner
Distributed by	Flingor Studios
Release date	15 October 2025
Running time	2h 5min
Country	Besmenia
Language	Besmenian
Budget	BS 16.5 million

The Insane Cannibal (Besmenian: Der wahnsinnige Kannibale) is a 2025 Besmenian psychological horror splatter film directed by Claudia Schweiger, produced by Schweiger and Rainer Bedorn, and with a screenplay by Viktor Reichert. It is the second adaptation of the 1945 novel Forest Cannibal by Sigmund Scharf and is a remake of Helmut Rommel's 1969 film of the same name. It stars Marc Pommering, Elisa Müller, Matthias Baden and Julia Aignerl. The film follows Tom Meyer, a formerly mentally disturbed man with a cannibal fetish, who, during a camping trip with his girlfriend Sara and a married couple Marcel and Michaela, which goes completely wrong, loses his temper and relapses, rediscovers his penchant for cannibalism and wants to kill all three.

Plot

2000

Tom Meyer, a 10-year-old child, lives with his mother Angela and his father Holger. He does not have a good relationship with his parents, as his mother does not take good care of him, she seems to not care about anything and only watches television, and his father is often violent towards him when he makes mistakes. Tom also shows signs of various disorders and has discovered an interest in cannibalism. When one day at school his classmate Tobias bullies him badly, Tom is irritated and grabs Tobias, beats him up badly and even tries to eat him, as all the anger and frustration he has had over the years has now been released. When his father picks him up from school shortly afterwards and beats Tom at home as punishment, who is still full of anger and hatred, he runs into the kitchen and kills his father with various kitchen items. His mother, who comes home shortly afterwards and sees this, runs into the garden in panic. The family's neighbor calls the police when she sees Tom attacking his mother. When the police arrive, the mother is already dead and they arrest Tom.

2024

Tom, now 34 years old and who has been in the mental institution for 24 years, after he was arrested by the police in 2000 for murdering his parents, is released because he has made significant improvements and progress in the past years. His doctor Dr. Baiz, who cared for Tom over the years, no longer considers him a danger to others. However, he has to take various medications regularly to get his disorders under control. Tom moves in with his girlfriend Sara, whom met Tom in 2020 during a visit to the psychiatric clinic and who they have kept in touch with by letter since then.

Together with Marcel and Michaela Bleimann, a young couple who are friends with Sara, Tom and Sara go on a camping trip in the middle of the huge Rieth forest, where they are all driven by Niko, an employee of the Rieth Forest Nature Park, who takes the four to an approved campsite in the middle of the huge forest and picks them up again in a week. The trip doesn't start off great for Tom, as he thinks that Marcel and Michaela are secretly judging him negatively because of his past, and he also loses all his medication after he accidentally falls over and the medication falls into a lake, which he keeps secret from Sara.

The next day, problems arise. Animals ate most of the food supplies during the night, with only a few snacks left behind. Marcel, whose cell phone is the only one that has reception in the deep forest, calls Niko, who can only pick up the four in 2 days. While Sara, Marcel and Michaela trying to make the best of the situation for the next 2 days, Tom's condition worsens, especially because of his hunger. After he was about to fight with Marcel, Tom wants to have some peace and quiet for a while and walks aimlessly through the forest, where he later discovers a forest hut, but without any food supplies but with lots of tools. When the owner comes in, Tom accidentally kills him with an axe out of fear, whereupon the owner dies. When Tom sees the corpse, he is traumatized and remembers his murder of his parents, which causes his mental disorders to reappear. Because of his hunger, he decides to eat the dead owner's flesh, which awakens his desire for cannibalism again.

Some time later, Tom returns to the campsite. He keeps the forest hut for himself. In the evening, Sara confronts him about what happened to his medication and warns him about a relapse of his disorders, which Tom finds annoying because his mind wants to convince him that Sara does not love the "real" Tom. A heated argument ensues between the two, during which Tom becomes violent towards Sara and hits her. Marcel and Michaela hear the argument and intervene, dragging Tom away from Sara, whereupon Tom also develops a hatred for both of them, especially after his suspicions that the two of them were gossiping about his problems behind his back turn out to be true. Full of hatred and anger, Tom goes back to the forest hut. His anger and hatred causes his previously improved condition to continue to decline, and his early mental disorders resurface, while his mind tries to make it clear to him that Sara, Marcel and Michaela, like his parents, are standing in his way and actually all hate him, and that he should kill them too. In the hut, Tom takes a chainsaw and files his teeth with a file so that they are pointed and sharp. When it gets dark, Tom goes back to the campsite with the chainsaw while the three are sleeping. He secretly takes their cell phones and takes them to a lake a little further away, where Tom throws them in so that no one can call for help. After throwing the cell phones, Tom runs to the campsite with the chainsaw turned on, but gets his leg tangled in a branch growing from the ground, which wakes Sara, Marcel and Michaela up because of the chainsaw noise and gives them a head start while they escape. During their escape, Tom manages to kill Michaela with his chainsaw, and eating after her death her flesh. Meanwhile, Sara's curse leads her to a large meadow with a small abandoned hunter's hut in the middle. After she locks the door and looks around, Tom breaks the door down. Sara manages to hide behind a box in the attic, where she discovers an old telephone and calls the police.

As Tom continues through the forest, he discovers Marcel sitting up in a tree near the campsite. As Tom tries to cut down the tree with the chainsaw, Niko drives past in his van to pick up the four. As Niko arrives at the campsite and looks for the four, Tom comes out from a corner, kills Niko, and attacks him. Sara, who had left the hut in the meantime, watches and vomits in disgust and starts to cry. As Marcel tries to climb down from the tree, he accidentally slips, falls on the path and breaks his left leg. Tom notices this and runs to him, as Marcel is now "easy prey". Sara uses the opportunity to escape and gets into Niko's van, but she has never driven a car herself and therefore has difficulty starting it. Tom, who notices this, runs to her. Sara manages to start the transporter at the last second and because Tom has to run after her from the campsite, Sara also manages to take the seriously injured Marcel with her. Sara drives along the path with Marcel and some time later they arrive at the road entrance to Rieth forest, where the police are just arriving. Tom, who was previously running after the transporter, had lost his way. After screaming loudly in anger and making shrill noises, a bear approaches him, who sees him as a threat. After the bear knocks away his chainsaw, which Tom used in defense, it attacks him badly, leaving him with no feeling in his right leg and a large wound on his lower abdomen. As Tom tries to escape from the bear as best he can, he accidentally falls off a cliff and dies.