The Inheritors

 



Director - Walter Bannert (Real Men Don't Eat Gummi Bears, Eurocops)
Starring - Nikolas Vogel (Requiem for Dominic, Eurocops), Roger Shauer (Das Nest), and Wolfgang Gasser (Erased, Parapsycho)
Release Date - 1983
Genre - Drama
Tagline - "Thomas is young, strong, and misunderstood.  He will soon become a pawn in a dangerous new order spawned in the hatred and terror of a past generation"
Format - Bluray (Personal Collection) (Screener)

Rating (out of 5):

     My original intent when I started writing reviews was to review older movies that rarely get the attention they deserve.  I wanted the bad, the odd, the weird, and the unusual.  You can go to google and search horror review and get thousands upon thousands of review sites, blogs, and YouTubers that review mainstream horror but you rarely get reviews of off beat movies from the 70s, 80s, and 90s.  When I was in high school I had an English teacher that was from out of state.  We would often discuss movies and I learned that he was an extra in a few movies in the early 90s.  While discussing his short acting stent he told me about a movie called The Inheritors.  He said he had saw the movie sometime ago.  I listened to him talk about the film and it honestly didn't sound that entertaining to me.  Fast forward to now and Mondo Macabro has released the film on blu.  I shared the press release and a few weeks later I got the movie in for review.  I'll be completely honest and admit that I had no interest in checking this one out but I'm sure glad I did.  I absolutely loved the film.  Thank you Mondo for sending it my way.

     The film follows Thomas (Vogel) who comes from a wealthy family and attends a private school.  His mother is extremely hard on him and his brother which forces Thomas to seek acceptance elsewhere.  He befriends a nationalist who invites him to join the youth group for the new Nazi party that dismisses the thought that Hitler killed the Jews and that the white race should not breed with other ethnicities.  Things then take a violent turn when members in the youth group start acting out and turning to violence to prove their point which causes a shift in the group.  They turn into a group of radical right winged survivalist who begin arming themselves for a war that they believe is coming.  This only makes Thomas angrier and trigger happy which results in him killing someone without thinking of the consequences.  

     I get a lot of movies in to review that surpass my expectations but very few movies leave a lasting impact.  The Inheritors is one of those movies that you watch and immediately compare it to your life or things happening on the news even though this film was released 35 years ago.  It is brilliant and scary especially once you consider that history repeats itself.  The acting in this one is solid but there is high and low marks. Nikolas Vogel was great as Thomas.  The character goes through great changes and he does a phenomenal job.  His character is written with great detail and the development is spot on.  Vogel was fantastic and his performance makes the impact of the story even more important.  With that being said, The supporting cast was not the same quality as Vogel.  The characters did not have the same detail and in some cases they were very clichéd or flat.  Generic characters filled the backdrop of this piece.  The story for this one is predictable but just as relevant today was it was in 1983 when it was filmed.   The movie has a rather slow and smooth pacing that still holds the viewer's attention while still telling the story that some would consider offensive.  Race and Racism is a hot topic in the U.S. today with mass shootings and riots centered around them.  Focus is being pushed from these radical organizations to the president but the fact remains the same.  Racism often leads to murder and The Inheritors perfectly takes the viewer down that path.  When you start to hate something and that hatred consumes your life you will soon focus on removing the thing you hate from your life.  Hatred of a certain race eventually leads to wanting to remove that race from the world that you share with them.  History has shown us this time after time.  The Inheritors takes an uncomfortable subject that most want to ignore and thrusts it right in your face.  Finally, if you are looking for blood and gore you wont find it here.  We do get a death or two but they are done off camera.  The film is a character piece centered around an ideology filled with hate.  Overall, The Inheritors is an important piece of cinema that any movie fan needs to see regardless of the genre they love.  Check it out on blu from Mondo Macabro.