The Insane Cannibal

The Insane Cannibal Der wahnsinnige Kannibale
Original release movie poster from 1969
Directed by	Helmut Rommel
Screenplay by	Helmut Rommel
Based on	Forest Cannibal by Sigmund Scharf
Produced by	Helmut Rommel
Starring	Lisa Albrecht Egon Möller Peter Butzbach Katharina Vogel Volker Partau Emanuel Niederklaus
Music by	Georg Adam
Distributed by	Flingor Studios
Release date	24 October 1969
Running time	1h 20min
Country	Besmenia
Language	Besmenian
Budget	BS 2.2 million
Box office	BS 9.4 million

The Insane Cannibal (Besmenian: Der wahnsinnige Kannibale) is a 1969 Besmenian psychological horror splatter film adapted, produced, and directed by Helmut Rommel. It is based on the 1945 novel Forest Cannibal by Sigmund Scharf and stars Egon Möler, Lisa Albrecht, Peter Butzbach and Katharina Vogel. The film follows Tom Meyer, a formerly mentally disturbed man, who, during a camping trip with his girlfriend Ursula and a married couple Friedrich and Gudrun, which goes completely wrong, loses his temper and relapses, discovers a penchant for cannibalism and wants to kill all three.

Because of its portrayal of violence and mental disorder, never before seen in such a dark way in Besmenian cinema, the film caused a huge scandal and was featured in newspapers and magazines for months. There were isolated demonstrations in the first week after the premiere and various groups called for a boycott of the film. The film did not reach the cinemas of most cities until November and December 1969. When it was released, many local dignitaries repeated the call for a boycott. The temporary bans on performances and the public condemnation helped the scandalous film to become a huge success with audiences and was the breakthrough for Helmut Rommel as director and Egon Möller as actor. The Insane Cannibal is today considered a cult film, as well as one of the best Besmenian horror films by various critics.

A remake, The Insane Cannibal, was released in October 2025.

Plot

Newer movie poster used as the cover for the DVD.

The lonely telephone booth scene from the film (artistically drawn here) is one of the most famous moments in the film, and has been taken up in pop culture over the years.

The 34-year-old Tom Meyer, who is no longer classified as mentally disturbed and now apparently cured, is released from the psychiatric clinic after 22 years after he had a serious nervous breakdown at the age of 12 and murdered his parents and tried to eat them because of an interest in cannibalism that was awakened in childhood. However, he has to take various medications regularly to get his disorders under control. Tom moves in with his girlfriend Ursula Jahn, whom Tom met in 1966 during a visit to the psychiatric clinic and who they have kept in touch with by letter since then.

Together with Friedrich and Gudrun Bleimann, a young couple who are friends with Ursula, Tom and Ursula go on a camping trip in the middle of the huge Riethwald forest, where they are all driven by Ursula's father. The trip doesn't start off great for Tom, as he realizes that Friedrich and Gudrun are secretly judging him negatively because of his past, and he loses all his medication after he accidentally falls over and the medication falls into a lake, which he keeps secret from Ursula.

The next day, problems arise. Animals ate all the food supplies during the night and they can no longer find their way out of the forest because the map was destroyed by the rain. Ursula's father will not pick them up for another 5 days. While Ursula, Friedrich and Gudrun try to make the best of the situation, Tom's condition worsens, especially because of his hunger. After he was about to fight with Friedrich, 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, Ursula confronts him about what happened to his medication and warns him about a relapse of his disorders, which Tom finds annoying because he believes that Ursula does not love the real Tom. A heated argument ensues between the two, during which Tom becomes violent towards Ursula and hits her. Friedrich and Gudrun hear the argument and intervene, dragging Tom away from Ursula, 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, while his mind tries to make it clear to him that Ursula, Friedrich and Gudrun, 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 to kill the three. While Tom has the chainsaw on and is running towards the campsite, his leg gets tangled in a branch growing from the ground, which wakes Ursula, Friedrich and Gudrun up because of the chainsaw noise and gives them a head start while they escape. During their escape, Tom manages to kill Gudrun with his chainsaw, and after her death he eats her flesh. Meanwhile, Ursula's curse leads her to a large meadow with a telephone booth in the middle. After she locks the cell from the inside, she calls the police. When she has finished making the call, Tom is standing in front of the closed cell, uses a stick to break the already slightly damaged lower pane and tries to reach in with his hand, whereupon Ursula takes a large stone that was lying in the cell and hits Tom's hand with it and flees from him again. Some time later, Tom discovers Friedrich, who flees to the forest hut, where Tom also kills him with his chainsaw, while Friedrich manages to throw wood chips into Tom's eyes beforehand, which partially blinds him. Meanwhile, Ursula manages to get to the entrance to the forest, where the police are already there. Tom, who is half-blind and running through the forest with his chainsaw and screaming for Ursula, comes across a pack of wolves who see him as a threat and attack him. During the attack, Tom accidentally falls off a cliff and dies.

Production

Filming began in December 1968 and ended in June 1969. Some of the scenes in the Hanbei forest were shot in the Summingian forest.

Indexing and confiscation of the uncensored version

Cover of the uncensored 1981 VHS version, which was confiscated in 1985.

The film was first released on VHS in 1981. The distribution of the VHS version of The Insane Cannibal by distributor Summingia Video was banned in 1985 due to its "violent nature" and the film was confiscated. An abridged VHS version with shortened dialogue and plot lines and less splatter scenes was then released in 1987 and later in 2001 on DVD. On June 14, 2011, the confiscation was lifted and the uncensored version was given the label "No release to young persons",a nd was released on DVD for the first time at the end of 2011.

Trivia

- The first broadcast on Besmenian television was on October 31, 2014 in the night program of BTV.
- On the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the film, The Insane Cannibal was shown again in a restored version in November 2019 in several Besmenian cinemas.