"Tatort" from Vienna: To hell with Rambazamba

Thomas Roth, creator of some well-researched "Tatort" episodes in a slightly bland old-school manner, as well as the Falco drama "Verdammt, wie leben noch!", resisted his demon on one single point: No "spinning" to the end, no whirlwind 360-degree head spins like the possessed Regan did in The Exorcist (1973).

Otherwise, in this exorcist “crime scene”, which is more satire than horror film (and crime thriller at most in the form of scavenging), no creepy point, no matter how dated, has to be dispensed with.

It begins in an ultra-classic way: A trembling girl gropes her way towards a door through a house that has been shaken by evil.

Light penetrates from the door gap, behind it an incantation takes place.

Then the piercing scream.

How the scene, which is included several times, is explained should surprise, but above all it seems clumsy.

Roth (script and director, i.e. sole ruler) is just as unconcerned with regard to obvious, always awkwardly incorporated sentences.

From "Teufel's kitchen" jokes to worn-out Mephisto quotes to the greeting of the inspectors Moritz Eisner (Harald Krassnitzer) and Bibi Fellner (Adele Neuhauser) with "If one speaks of the devil" everything is there that can be expected of an exception of the diabolically irradiated ex-pimp Dambusch (Roland Düringer) extremely tired underplayed horror fun without any esprit.

The musty dialogues of this Halloween episode, which may be a month early, seem eerily unimaginative even by “crime scene” standards.

How many times right at the beginning "Hey, hey, stop" can be called out behind a hooded figure running away is just a first kick with a horse's foot.

The gate to the underworld is somewhere in Vienna

Roth did his research this time too, at least like Bibi does in the film: "It's on the internet." And there you can read a lot of rubbish in relevant forums about a "gateway to hell" that is on the former bank of the Danube in the 3rd district or somewhere else in the city, mostly connected with stories about a former place of execution.

There is also Vienna's bloody myth.

After all, it wasn't just Ingeborg Bachmann who emphasized the dark side of the morbid "City of Silence" with its tombs, alleyways of poor and sinners and a pronounced cult of the dead.

Apparently Roth has little to do with myths.

And the attempt to undermine them bizarrely - "You eat dog food?" - seems awkward.

So a priest is found dead, look, clutching a pentagram pendant.

"Satanism," concludes Bibi razor sharp.

It turns out that the priest worked as an exorcist for the church.

The narrower circle of suspects therefore includes the priest's embarrassed-looking assistant (Lukas Watzl), a possessed woman (Maresi Riegner) who has recently been unsuccessfully treated - vulgar curses in a demon's voice break out of her, and the investigators have the thankless task of appearing afraid - a chatter psychologist with the silly name “Doctor Sittsam” (Sven Eric Bechtolf) called in to the exorcisms – huge gag: Kubrick connoisseur Eisner calls him “Doctor Strange” –, a theology doctoral student (Angela Gregovic) who lectures on the tricks of the Antichrist and the one mentioned

years ago themselves demon-cleansed pimps.

Düringer, one of the more interesting, not undisputed cabaret artists in Austria, plays the incense-drunk conspiracy theorist so full-blooded, which is otherwise sorely lacking here.

Nevertheless, it remains damned unclear what he should have to do with the choice.

In the end, it was only mentioned because Bibi remembered an “old acquaintance”: “a real great in the field of occultism”: narratively, a capitulation.

In addition to the effects, the drone shots are nice to look at, an aesthetic voice from above, so to speak.

Of course, there must still be a private connection to the paranormal on the part of the investigators, as should be provided for by the secret "crime scene" statutes.

Eisner sums up the misery – including that of the film: “Unfortunately, it will be very difficult for us to arrest the devil for murder.”

Why not the devil?

As a genre experiment, "The Gateway to Hell" failed so much because the film, despite the indiscriminate spooky effects interspersed, does not dare to go beyond conventions in terms of narrative and aesthetic pleasure.

Undecided, he hangs between horror farce and crime parody, is for long stretches simply the most uninspired investigative horror:

Otherwise, little is true, not even the gimmicky resolution.

After all, the tottering plot sinks into the crypt with a bang.

Those who make themselves comfortable with a can of dog food instead do not necessarily come off worse.

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