B-Grade Gems: Karl The Butcher Vs. Axe

Karl The Butcher Vs. Axe - 2010 - Germany - Horror/Splatter/Post-Apocalyptic

Karl The Butcher Vs. Axe (AKA Violent Shit 4.0) is a collaberation between two German schlock/gore directors; Andreas Schnaas ans Timo Rose. (It's all shot in English however, to provide for a larger audience.) Karl The Butcher (played by Schnaas as always) is a recurring character in Schnaas's Violent Shit films. Axe is a new character, played by Timo Rose. These two German heavyweights join together in this hilarious Z-grade piece of crap splatter romp to decapitate mercilessly.

This film should be renamed Karl The Butcher & Axe Vs. Everybody Else, considering the two team up to take on the post apocalyptic gangs roaming the wasteland. The gangs are all equally unique and equally laughable. One of the most prominent ones is a female gang ran by lousy porn star actresses (needless to say this film has no shortage of tits and ass) who abduct men and use them to collect jizz for their "sperm separator", so they can reproduce without fornication....

I'm not quite sure why all the gangs are hellbent on taking out Karl The Butcher and his sidekick Axe, but its pretty clear none of them stand much of a chance at doing so, as the body count in this flick is enormous. Most kills start off with a pathetically bad and poorly choreographed fight scenes, but they usually don't last too long and are almost always redeemed by a ludicrously gory decapitation at the end.

This film, as one would expect from these two directors, is LOADED with blood and guts. There's tons of limbs ripped off, be-headings, bodily explosions, chainsaw fights and so on. Schnaas let Timo Rose take the helm on the gore FX in this one. Timo Rose is has proven himself more than adequate at gore FX in his previous films, however there are a couple kills in this movie done with CGI. This is a major cop-out. With someone as talented at gore FX as Rose is, the CGI seemed completely unnecessary. Luckily the CGI kills were few and far between, and there was plenty of traditional FX to make up for it.

If it hasn't become clear already, Schnaas is my favorite director of the two. He's been around doing his thing a lot longer than Rose has, and I find his films in general more enjoyable than Timo's. What made this film great was the ever visible Schnaas charm. The ability to make a movie that is self aware. Aware that its a piece of shit, and able to thrive under those circumstances. There's plenty of humor thrown in, and the horrific actors seem aware of what kind of movie their acting in, and give what seems almost purposefully awful performances, inducing some good, hearty laughs. Timo, although I haven't seen as many film of his as I have of Schnaas, seems to take himself a bit more seriously then Andreas does, luckily it doesn't show in this film.

So in conclusion Violent Shit 4.0 is a total schlocky piece of junk, but its absolutely hilarious and terrifically entertaining. There's tits and gore galore, and a body count to rival any horror flick you've most likely seen in the recent future. I hesitate to rate this flick as highly as I'm about to (I hope it doesn't make me lose any credibility amongst loyal readers) but I have a soft spot for these type of micro-budget gore flicks, and am willing to rate this one well even despite it's use of CGI. If you like REALLY bad movies, you'll have a blast.

Unfortunately at this point there are no region 1 or 0 DVDs that have been released, you should be able to stream it online if you look for it though.

Plot - 3/10
Acting - 2/10
Blood n' Guts - 8.5/10
Action - 8.5/10
Absurdity - 9/10
Cheese - 9/10
OVERALL - 8/10

Karl The Butcher returns from the depths of hell!