GRIMMFEST - Film Review - Megalomaniac (2022)

**In Megalomaniac, The knives and hammers are out in this grueling tar pit of original sin as we follow the imagined offspring of the real-life serial killer the Mons Butcher.**

Felix has grasped the family baton of butchery and continues the work of his notorious father who slaughtered women and dumped their hacked-up remains in bin bags on the streets of Mons. Meanwhile, his mentally ravaged sister Martha is habitually bullied and casually raped during her night shift janitor job.

As her psychological health degrades she drifts further from the fragile moorings of reality and into the raging shitstorm of her blood-soaked birthright.

If that brief synopsis reads a little bleak that’s because Megalomaniac is a serious contender for the most depressing movie experience of the year. Like Katrin Gebbe’s near-unbearable Nothing Bad Can Happen before it, Megalomaniac aims to serve up scabby social commentary and a front-row seat for a disparaging autopsy of the human condition.

Director Karim Ouelhaj’s motivations for making such a deeply disturbing film are multifaceted and surprisingly unconfrontational. His intent was to manifest a cinematic interpretation of the inner ring of suffering at the epicenter of the circle of life. An unflinching and horrifying deconstruction of our degenerate species’ wilful commitment to replicating the same horrendous fuck ups over and over again.

In addition, he appears hell-bent on rekindling the more intimate connections past generations shared with their sense of place and purpose. On top of this, he also goes all in on the notion that high art has a legitimate part to play in the filthy business of reflecting on the inherent cruelty of mankind.

Also at the rotten core of this downbeat deluge is the firm accusation that we as humans are lost souls destined to recycle the pain and anguish we endure into the lives of others.

Thankfully, Ouelhaj’s cultural nous prevents his gaze from lingering salaciously in realist explicitness. Instead, he prefers to dwell on baroque atmospherics and Gothic composition with his photographic eye for restrained artistry. If he had not made these erudite decisions then the genuinely shocking themes depicted in Megalomaniac would have left it an undigestible freak show.

That being said, it is fearless filmmaking that bristles with trigger shredding set-pieces that will test the boundaries of all who view it. Indeed it is a fascinating paradox that in showing reserve in his determination to cross lines in the sand Ouelhaj‘s film becomes more powerful and affecting.

What really elevates Megalomaniac above the slew of serial killer shockers that tap into our dubious obsession with masters of murder is its complete lack of judgementalism. We are not just invited to process the carnage from the perspective of these broken siblings, but compelled to indulge them with complicit empathy.

It’s an astonishingly bold Modus operandi that completely upstages the controversy surrounding the hit Netflix Jeffrey Dahmer drama in of glorification. It goes without saying, fans of that show may find themselves in much deeper and more distressing waters if they swim too close to this particular powerhouse of perversity.

As aesthetically appealing as it is morally appalling Megalomaniac constitutes a surreal stomach-churning chase-down of evil personified. Only to find its defensive lair is nothing but a highly polished hall of mirrors.