A New Kind of Nightmare

Copyright 1994 by Michael Huck

Behind the Scenes 4

some black-and-white stills
Copyright 1994 by Michael Huck

Behind the Scenes 3

Behind the Sences 3
Here are some more stills in color.
Copyright 1994 by Michael Huck

Behind the Scenes 2

Behind the Scenes 1

Pre-Production
While looking actually for a cast for a crime story, I met Marlene Marlow and Kerstin Orf and had the idea to shoot a totally different project with them.
Many years ago in school I witnessed an interesting scene during a break between two lessons. One of the most beautiful girls of our school was sitting on a desk. She was very, very beautiful, used make-up like a Hollywood actress and dressed also more like a model. She wore tight skirts and leather boots in all colors. Most of the not so pretty girls were rather jealous.
During this break I noticed next to her on a chair one girl who stared at her body, her eyes wandering up and down. In her hands that girl held a shawl (it was winter). While she was staring at the beautiful girl her hands trembled and she did hold the shwal tighter and tighter. Suddely she jumped up, wrapped the shawl around the beautiful girls legs and shouted very excited: Now she is going to be tied up!
Immediately another girl jumped up shouting "Oh, yes! Let´s do it!"
It was only a short scene in a 5 minute break during two lessons and the shawl they used to tie her up was not really a perfect thing to tie her up. She struggled only a couple of moments and she was free. But I never forget the expression on the face of the two girls, it really showed how much they enjoyed to tie this beautiful girl up. They just loved to see her humiliated this way. I also remembered how the beautiful girl reacted when the other girl started to tie her up. She looked shocked and instantly shouted: No!!! I think she was pretty aware how much the other girls were jealous and how much they´d loved her to see tied up.

There is one still from "Die Schulfeindin" when Angela is helpless tied to the chair, with a gag in her mouth and Miriam and Karin are next to her, looking down to her, smirking, making fun of her helpless victim and really enjoy to have the beauty at her mercy. That´s exactly the expression I´ve seen on the face of those girls in school. Kerstin and Claudia did play their parts hiliarious while Marlene looked great in that scene.

Marlene´s part was very difficult. The running time of the first edited version was 60 minutes and for about 45 minutes Marlene is tied up and most of the time also gagged. There are fighting scenes, lots of scenes that involve Angela being tortured by the two evil girls, in one scene, Angela is tied to a chair and Karin lets her uncanny rat crawl all over Angela.
I do not like rats. This was the idea of the actresses. They came up with the idea and all three loved it. They even got us a rat as I did not really try to find one and when they realized I did not care much about the rat scene, Kerstin got us one from some guy who owned some rats. The rat looked horrible in my eyes, but as the animal was used to humans the rat behaved very good and never did bite one of us, just loved crawling over our actresses who had no fear at all.

Marlene had to find a way to play her part being angry but also vulnerable and in the end with so much hate she kills both other girls. When watching the editied scenes the first time, Marlene Marlow told me how frustrated it was to play the scene when she is captured for the second time. She alreay had freed herself, attacked Miriam and is about to beat her up, then Karin comes back and together they overpower Angela again. Angela already was safe and then A G A I N she is overpowered, she is gagged, she is tied up, A G A I N she is the helpless victim and now Miriam and Karin start the party. This really was one of the most frustrating moments for Angela and Marlene played the part absolutley perfect.

Here are some stills behind the scenes, showing also dress rehearsals.

Copyright 1994 by Michael Huck

Hate and Jealousy - Karin

The Characters 2: Karin - Life is not fair

Claudia Splitt plays Miriam´s friend Karin. She never has met Angela before but she has met kind of Angelas before. Like Miriam, Karin always was the ugly duckling while some other girl, more beautiful and more popular always was there. Karin like Miriam feels life is not fair and she is jealous and she hates Angela because Angela is beautiful and because she has money and because she has a beautiful life.
Karin enjoys to humiliate Angela whom she considers an arrogant beauty. Karin feels inferior and just likes the idea of having her bound and gagged. Karin actually likes to see Angela suffer.
Like Miriam, Claudia becomes a kind of monster without being supernatural. What both characters makes so dangerous is they are real. They are not fantasies out of a horror story they are "girls next door", very, very evil "girls next door".
Karin just loves the idea of watching the helpless bound and gagged Angela struggling when her rat crawls over her body. Karin really thinks Angela deserves to be treated this way because she has all and Karin has nothing. From Karin´s point of view, Angela deserves to suffer.
Claudia Splitt and Kerstin Orf played this sick kind of joy in a perfect way. Here are some stills showing how much Miriam and Karin enjoy to humilitate their helpless victim.
On the other hand Marlene played Angela not as just a victim. Even when she is bound and gagged she somehow manages to look beautiful and superior what makes Karin and Miriam of course even more angry.

Copyright 1994 by Michael Huck