No Reason — No Reason( Blu Ray)
No Reason is an early 2010 example of the German Splatter genre- it features some neat and at points perversely creative examples of gore, touches of both creepy cosmic horror & arty edges, and lastly a fairly good stab at trying to give the whole thing some sort of storyline. So there’s definitely more on offer here than just a selection of intense gore set-ups. Here from the guys over at Unearthed Films is a new release of the film- either coming in the form of a Blu Ray or DVD, with both offering up an uncut print and a few extras.
Originally appearing in 2010 No Reason was written/ director by infamous underground German Gore Olaf Ittenbach. This was the thirteenth film he helmed, and while (as expected) some of the acting is far from great-or-even competent, the film is rewardingly grisly, perverse, and at points creepily tripping slice of Splatter bound horror.
The focuses on Jennifer(Irene Holzfurtner) a skinny and rather rough-looking mother with one young son. The film darts back and forth through time & (seemingly) realities- we kick off with Holzfurtner confronting her lover with a gun after finding out he’s cheating on a neighbour- she’s naked( as she is for most of the film), and she guns him down, before blowing out her own brains- with the medics trying to help her back to life. From here she seemingly drops into ‘hell’ as we meet a humanoid-like Cthulhu creature with a black octopus-like head, wearing a black S&M get-up. She gets taken through several coloured layers of hell, and on each, she finds new torture and depravity. On the first 'red' level she gets to see a brutal and ragged throat-ripping, nasty plastic sheet suffocation, and a fairly prolonged cock ripping and blood spurting session. As we carry on down to the 'green' level we get a room full of torture and death- with limbs hacked and ripped off, cock noshing head given, hook face pulls and more. I won’t go on further detailing either the gore or the plot-which is fairly present/ competent for a Splatter film. Overall, No Reason is a good and rewarding example of the more recent German Splatter- with a nice blend of extreme/ perverse gore, and sleazed at points cosmic tipped horror.
On the extras side, we get a behind the scenes featurette- this runs seven minutes and is clearly brought over from a previous release. Next, we get an interview with Timothy Balme- the New Zealand actor who was in the early Peter Jackson film/ splatter classic Dead Alive( aka Braindead). In No Reason he plays a Pathologist- the interview runs eleven minutes and is English sub-titled with German subs. Lastly, we get an image gallery and an Unearthed trailer reel. So not a huge lot of extras, and nothing new but both featurettes/ interviews are certainly worth a play.
It is great to see Unearthed giving a stateside release of No Reason. And if you’re a splatter fan who enjoys a bit more story and uneasy atmospherics with your gruel ‘n’ gore, then you’ll be needing to pick this up!