Der Fan (1982)

“Hallucinatory…fascinates with its icy elegance.” — Melissa Anderson, 4Columns

“The bats**t German exploitation horror film you’ve been looking for.” — Vice

SYNPOSIS

Teenage obsession curdles into something genuinely shocking in Eckhart Schmidt’s hypnotic 1982 cult film Der Fan, a work of German shock cinema that should resonate with admirers of Andrzej Żuławski’s Possession and the stylized provocations of Nicolas Winding Refn. Désirée Nosbusch stars as Simone, a seventeen-year-old West German schoolgirl consumed by her devotion to enigmatic New Wave pop star R (Rheingold vocalist/guitarist Bodo Staiger), prompting her to abandon home and embark on a pilgrimage to meet the man she knows only through records, television appearances, and carefully manufactured images. Schmidt remains closely tethered to Simone’s subjective experience while resisting easy psychological explanations, observing her behavior with an unnerving precision as the fantasy of celebrity gradually collides with the realities of power, desire, and control. Driven by Rheingold’s droning synth score and an austere visual style punctuated by eruptions of sexuality and violence, Der Fan turns teen alienation and pop idolatry into a trancelike descent whose increasingly transgressive final movement must be seen to be believed. You will not soon forget this one.

Screening in a new 4K restoration featuring the original theatrical Dolby Stereo mix, heard for the first time since the film’s initial release, courtesy of Fun City Editions.