While the teen slasher is primarily an American invention, that small fact has never stopped other cultures from trying the popular horror subgenre on for size. And like the rest of the world at the time, Germany saw an obvious opportunity after Scream renewed interest in the hottest horror trend of yesteryear. Hiding among the soupçon of comely Deutsche slashers released around the turn of the century is Flashback: Mörderische Ferien (Murderous Vacation). This import won’t evoke nostalgia outside its motherland, but fans of this first revival era of slashers will undoubtedly find a lot to like about it.
Like other slashers, Michael Karen’s movie begins in the past. A killer finds his way to an unsuspecting family’s vacation home after disposing of two random airheads on a train. The young daughter, Jeanette Feelman (Nicola Etzelstorfer), then witnesses the murder of her parents before barely escaping with her own life. The story picks up in the present day, where Jeanette (Valerie Niehaus) is now ten years older and residing at a psychiatric facility. Her recollection since that horrible night is foggy; she doesn’t remember what happened to her parents’ killer. Despite the lost memories, Dr. Martin (Erich Schleyer) thinks his patient is ready to leave; he even has a tutoring job lined up for Jeanette at a family’s isolated home.
The clients are three teenage siblings, Leon, Melissa and Lissy Schröder (Xaver Hutter, Alexandra Neldel, Simone Hanselmann), whose father wants them all to learn French while he’s away on business. It’s only the four of them in this mountain-adjacent house, plus the housekeeper played by Elke Sommer. So far, this private tutoring gig seems like a great opportunity for Jeanette; it’s the perfect chance for her to readjust to the real world without being thrown to the wolves. Her job is away from the public eye, and her students are fairly cooperative despite having to study over the summer. Regardless of his good intentions, though, Dr. Martin may have jumped the gun. Jeanette’s shot at a normal life is at risk once she starts to slowly recall the missing pieces of that traumatic night.
After a gruesome start, Flashback takes a short rest before resuming the slasher carnage. This gives Jeanette time to slowly unravel in her unfamiliar surroundings. The missing floral dress from her luggage — one matching the killer’s outfit from that ill-fated night — sets off Jeanette’s sense of paranoia. Soon the movie has a faint but favorable resemblance to vintage mysteries, seeing as the main character struggles to feel comfortable in her new environment. Jeanette never shakes off the uneasiness following the disappearance of her unflattering dress, and when her students and the housekeeper are unbothered by the weirdness, she feels more anxious. The director does a fine job of suggesting the problem is all in her head, despite the audience knowing better.
To maintain suspense, Dr. Martin withholds vital information from both Jeanette and the viewers. Even when the patient asks him directly, the doctor skirts around the killer’s most current whereabouts. In the meantime, Jeanette’s episodes worsen and she thinks her assailant has followed her. The obscured antagonist comes and goes in the story like a shadow in the corner of someone’s eye. This technique is admittedly nothing new for those individuals fluent in the language of slashers, but it’s essential to Flashback‘s success — the audience must constantly question Jeanette’s rationality, or else the movie risks being too straightforward. The immediate post-Scream era of horror favored wild plot twists and narrative ruses, after all.
While this movie doesn’t elude its origin as much as fellow aughts slasher The Pool — the English-language and Prague-set German whodunit starring Isla Fisher and James McAvoy — Flashback still lacks a strong cultural identity. It might as well be a commercial-ready slasher from America but shot in Deutsch. Even for someone who’s only seen the dubious English dub, the Bavarian Alps backdrop is unmistakable and gives the real location away. Still, it’s easy to adjust to the foreign locale; fans of American-made slashers will feel at home when they see the teen fashion, hear the music, and spot The Relic in the theater scenes.
Flashback has an inconsistent tone, which is only a problem if someone has trouble navigating horror movies that are both tongue-in-cheek and serious. This slasher indeed never cracks an utterly witty joke, but there is a sense of fun. Namely any and all entertainment comes from sight gags. A bright-yellow vibrator buzzes as someone is sickled to death off screen, a ski lift delivers a fresh corpse while a camera crew is filming, and someone decides the house cat would make a better smoothie than a pet. The director throws some morbid humor on nearly every open wound. This decision doesn’t undermine the sheer horror, either — it only makes the grisly moments all the more memorable.
As irreverent as Flashback is for the most part, that last act is unexpectedly urgent and grave. The situation finally escalates from “Don’t tell Dad the tutor is catatonic” to a full-blown killing spree following a sizable reveal. There’s no longer a mystery to solve, and that’s perfectly fine. Up until the end, this slasher commits to its villain’s bloody rampage that the audience may very well condone, believe it or not. The characters here practically asked for their horrible fates.
Flashback is not quite like anything else released around the same time. This is due to the fact that the movie is based on an unproduced script from Hammer Studios screenwriter Jimmy Sangster rather than a prevailing horror trend. And while Michael Karen’s movie may lean toward comedy, it’s not so sarcastic or goofy that the horror bits are dulled down. Timeliness certainly didn’t do Flashback any favors upon its initial release; being so close to the movement that inspired it, this movie inevitably got overlooked and disregarded. Thankfully, with some distance between then and now, not to mention a remastered re-release, this slick-looking and enjoyable slasher can be given the fair shot it deserves.
Horrors Elsewhere is a recurring column that spotlights a variety of movies from all around the globe, particularly those not from the United States. Fears may not be universal, but one thing is for sure — a scream is understood, always and everywhere.
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