The Cremator

A promising idea for a black comedy about a mild-mannered family man who runs a crematorium, this works well enough for a while as he fusses simultaneously over the details of his trade and matters of personal hygiene, gradually becoming obsessed with the notion that his ovens are a last defence against earthly torments. The trouble is that the time is the late 1930s, and Herz makes such heavy allegorical weather of his tale that one is giving absolutely nothing away by revealing that the hero and his ovens eventually find fulfilment the Nazis.