Tartarus (2010) User Reviews

low budget unconvincing effort

[dominus1642 · 3/10 · 26 March 2012]

Jakob and Veith are two friends returning from the Napoleonic war. Vieth along with his Prussian friend (Jacob)heads for his native village, somewhere up in the Austrian mountains, to claim the cottage that belonged to his grandfather of which he is the sole inheritor. In the village and the woods surrounding it they encounter a terrible unknown force unheard of before.

Well the idea was not so lame as the movie making made it. Cheesy effects and low budget scenario is one thing but immature acting and waste of splendid scenery that could have been so vividly utilized had the director put a bit of more skill gets really painful when watching this movie. The acting isn't solid as is expected of most of the low budgets but there is a constant feeling throughout that a better everything could have been achieved.

The only thing engaging aside from the story thats terribly wasted to the point that it loses its efficacy is the scenic locations, the starting few minutes the area around the cottage the vibrant green over the hills is the only relief that one gets out of it.

My guess is if you have a heart for low budgets flimsy acting and have nothing else to watch then go for it, it might be successful in keeping you engaged for a while but don't expect any artistic brilliance or convincing effects coz the moment you shift to that mood you are gonna lose it.

I should have liked it, but I didn't

[Horst_In_Translation · 4/10 · 18 May 2017]

"Tartarus" is an Austrian German-language movie from 2010 written and directed by Stefan Müller. With the script he got help from Martin Kroissenbrunner, who is also one of the two lead actors in this 105-minute movie. It is a mix of mystery and horror, which are probably not my two favorite genres, but there are films from both genres that I enjoy a lot. In reference to my title I need to say that I usually enjoy those horror films the most that are not about excessive splatter, but more about an unseen danger that is omnipresent though. And this is certainly the case here as we never really know what is lurking in the dark and when it is. And I also like films that don't have too many characters and protagonists, but keep it simple quantity-wise instead. Another check for this one here. And yet it wasn't really working out for me here. What may be the reasons? One could be that with the latter that I described, it is also necessary that these few core character need to be written extremely well and the performances must also be spot-on. I don't think either of these two demands was fulfilled properly unfortunately. Maybe lack of experience is the key here that swings it comfortably to the negative because for example one lead actor (Moritz Thate) has no acting experience at all in film (according to IMDb). Anyway, it's probably a combination of several factors. All in all, I must say the film dragged a lot eventually, could(/should) have been at least 20 minutes shorter and I feel as if I am still on the generous side with my four stars out of ten. I think it's really only worth seeing for the very biggest German(-language)/horror film buffs who have seen pretty much everything else. This is no hidden gem at all and the IMDb rating is pretty accurate. I myself give it a thumbs-down and don't recommend checking it out.

Art film style - Stupid monster movie

[thingmaker2001 · 2/10 · 29 February 2020]

It mostly looks nice, although there are tilted camera shots that have no reason and a bizarre bit where it went to black and white for no purpose (I thought for a moment it was to represent monster-vision, but it was not POV). The actors are unconvincing, the period detail is shoddy (1813 and there are semiautomatic rifles) and the pace is slow... The writing is bad. Our protagonists get ideas from thin air (The monsters attack their cottage and then leave, depositing the corpse of a woman on the porch - therefore, they want us to bring them women... to mate with). The same protagonists behave badly (kidnapping a local woman to use as bait... twice) and stupidly (in the forest at night, hunting nocturnal monsters, they fail to cover each others back. This sort of thing is constantly happening. There are monsters. The pre-credit sequence, not unlike John Carpenter's The Thing shows us they come from outer space. But don't expect top see much of them and don't expect them to be remotely interesting. Oh, and women in this movie exist solely to facilitate alien reproduction or to motivate the pathetic male characters'