Schizophrenia

Released after serving a prison sentence for the shooting of an old lady he had never met, a psychopath (Leder) breaks into a house, terrorising and ultimately murdering an old lady, her wheelchair-bound husband and their daughter. Savage, stylistically brilliant and at times virtually unwatchable, this film bears comparison with Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer. But where Henry employed a cold objectivity, Kargl achieves a curious pull-push effect, the camerawork rubbing our noses in the as-it-happens atrocity while the director's disturbingly intimate voice-over gives a cool, dislocated account of events. Moments of black humour, as when the family dachshund picks up the old lady's false teeth, only serve to emphasise the quotidian nature of the horror. Stunning.