Every once in a while, a horror film comes along that doesn’t just want to scare you—it wants to climb inside your skull, rearrange the furniture, and redecorate the place in blood and bile. Gerald Kargl’s Angst (1983) is exactly that kind of movie. It’s not polite, it’s not entertaining in the traditional sense, and it certainly won’t be programmed during your local Halloween film marathon. But it is brilliant—brilliant in the way that makes you want to shower immediately afterward.
This Austrian horror thriller is loosely based on real-life murderer Werner Kniesek, which is already enough to make you queasy. But it’s Kargl’s filmmaking style, and the manic, terrifying performance by Erwin Leder, that elevates Angst from simple shock cinema into a singular work of art. This is the rare slasher film that has no interest in catharsis, no tidy resolution, and no real “good guys.” It’s two hours in the company of a psychopath who narrates his every twisted thought like a sociopathic tour guide. And against all reason, it’s riveting.
A Killer Without Glamour
Most horror films dress up their killers—mask, costume, a little mythology. Jason has his hockey mask, Freddy has his glove, Michael Myers has William Shatner’s face spray-painted white. But Angst strips away all that. Leder plays the unnamed killer as an ordinary man—gaunt, jittery, the kind of face you wouldn’t notice in line at the bakery. That’s precisely what makes him terrifying. There’s no camp, no theatricality. He’s not a monster under the bed; he’s the guy who might help you carry groceries, and then gut you in the stairwell.
His monologues reveal not only his compulsion to kill but also his warped justifications. He doesn’t crave money or revenge—he craves the look of fear in a victim’s eyes, the moment when their humanity is stripped bare. It’s stomach-churning, but also chillingly believable. Many films claim to show the mind of a killer; Angst actually does it.
A Camera That Never Lets You Breathe
Zbigniew Rybczyński’s cinematography deserves its own billing. The camera swoops, glides, and pivots like a restless spirit, often hovering above Leder as if God himself is watching and shaking his head. At times, it attaches to the killer’s body, creating a nauseating sense of intimacy. You’re not just watching him—you’re trapped with him. It’s the cinematic equivalent of being locked in the trunk with the corpses.
Unlike the blunt jump scares of American slashers, Angst builds tension through relentless movement. Even quiet moments feel unsafe because the camera is always creeping, suggesting violence is never far away. The effect is exhausting, but that exhaustion is the point.
Violence Without Safety Nets
Let’s address the obvious: this film is brutal. Not in the cartoonish, over-the-top way of splatter films, but in a clinical, documentary style. The murders are messy, awkward, and painfully real. When Leder strangles, stabs, or drags a victim, it doesn’t look choreographed—it looks like something you weren’t supposed to see.
There’s no slick editing to hide the impact, no ironic quips to lighten the mood. Just raw violence presented with an almost perverse honesty. It’s easy to understand why the film was banned in multiple countries on release. This isn’t entertainment in the conventional sense; it’s horror stripped of glamour, leaving only the naked terror.
And yet, that refusal to compromise is what makes Angst so powerful. Where other slashers give you the comfort of knowing the villain will get their comeuppance, here the killer is caught almost by accident—rear-ending a car, strolling back into the diner he left hours before. It’s not justice, it’s coincidence. Which, in a way, is far scarier.
Erwin Leder: A One-Man Nightmare
Erwin Leder’s performance is one of the most convincing portrayals of psychosis ever put on screen. He doesn’t play the killer as a “character” so much as he inhabits a state of mind. His darting eyes, twitching movements, and unhinged narration create the sense of a man always vibrating on the edge of explosion.
In a saner world, this would have been the kind of performance that earned international awards. Instead, it was buried under bans and controversy, only to be rediscovered decades later by horror aficionados who recognized its brilliance. Watching Leder, you don’t feel like you’re seeing acting—you feel like someone opened a door to a real killer’s brain and forgot to close it.
Horror as Social Autopsy
There’s a grim sense of irony in how Angst ties the killer’s pathology back to childhood abuse. On paper, it sounds trite—“bad parents made a bad kid.” But in execution, it feels less like an excuse and more like a bleak reminder of cycles of violence. The killer recounts his upbringing with the same cold detachment he uses to describe his crimes. Abuse, cruelty, neglect—these are simply ingredients in his recipe for destruction.
What’s unsettling is how little separates him from the society around him. He walks into diners, chats with taxi drivers, and slips into houses without raising suspicion. Kargl seems to be saying: monsters aren’t hiding in the woods with machetes—they’re blending in, buying cigarettes at the corner shop.
The Dark Humor of Revulsion
Oddly enough, there are moments where Angst veers into a kind of black comedy. When the killer vomits after drinking a victim’s blood, it plays like the universe itself saying, “Even you can’t stomach what you’ve become.” When he shoves a wheelchair into a wall in frustration, it’s grotesque slapstick. These moments don’t undercut the horror; they highlight the absurdity of evil.
It’s as if the film is whispering: yes, this is terrible—but it’s also ridiculous that a human being could sink this low. That uneasy laughter is part of the experience.
The Legacy of Angst
At the time of release, Angst was too much for audiences. It was banned in Germany, and largely ignored elsewhere. But time has been kind to it. Today, it stands as one of the most influential cult horror films of the ’80s. Gaspar Noé has openly cited it as a major influence on films like Irreversible and Enter the Void. You can see its fingerprints in everything from Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer to the “elevated horror” of recent years.
In hindsight, it feels decades ahead of its time—a forerunner to the true-crime obsession and the modern hunger for realism in horror.
Final Thoughts
Angst is not a film you “enjoy.” It’s a film you endure, experience, and maybe regret watching. But that’s exactly why it’s great. It doesn’t play by the rules of horror cinema—it rips them up and forces you to sit with the raw, ugly truth of violence. It’s what happens when a filmmaker decides that if you’re going to look at the abyss, you shouldn’t get a safety railing.
The easy comparison is to call Angst a “masterpiece.” But that word feels too refined, too sanitized. Angst is a masterpiece in the way an autopsy report is a masterpiece: precise, horrifying, and impossible to forget.
Would I recommend it? Only if you’re ready for it. This isn’t a casual popcorn flick. It’s a scalpel to the brain. But if you want to see horror at its purest—stripped of pretense, glamour, and mercy—then Angst is the kind of film that reminds you what fear really looks like.
Grade: A
Terrifying, uncompromising, and unforgettable. If Visiting Hours was horror by committee, Angst is horror by executioner.
