GamerTab That was an excellent one.

Lightdeossk Captivating movie !

RipDelight This is a tender, generous movie that likes its characters and presents them as real people, full of flaws and strengths.

Allison Davies The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

Horst in Translation (filmreviews@web.de) "Das Amulett des Todes" is a West German film from 1975, so this one is already over 40 years old. It was made by Ralf Gregan and Günter Vaessen and it is one of Dutch actor Rutger Hauer's rare journeys into the world of German cinema. The two people I mentioned already are German and same can be said about pretty much the entire cast, such as female lead actress Vera Tschechowa and the eternal Sedlmayr. The film is fairly short, only runs for 80 minutes and the story is as follows. A man get violated by a bunch of crooks and a woman is watching. The men see her and take her hostage, but she manages to flee with the injured and from that moment on, a love relationship grows and they are always trying to get away from the bad guys and when they can't then Hauer's character fights them (sometimes they appear completely out of nowhere) with all he has, while Tschechowa's is usually tied up somewhere crying and being very scared. In theory, I like films with simple plot lines, so I believe this could have turned out a decent movie. But it did not. The plot was pretty ridiculous at times and Tschechowa is the perfect example here of how stereotypically bad female character were written around that time. Not even Hauer can save this film. It's bad through and through and there are very few solid moments only. 4/10 was still really generous here. I do not recommend the watch and I was pretty glad this was over so quickly. At best, a guilty pleasure, but not even as something like that it delivers.

Woodyanders Corinna (busty brunette Vera Teschechowa) witness three hoodlums chase down and shoot airplane pilot Cris (a pre-stardom Rutger Hauer) in front of her home in the remote country. The trio abduct Corinna and force her to take care of Cris. Naturally, Cris and Corinna go on the run after escaping from the hoods.Directors Ralf Gregan and Gunter Vaessen -- the latter also wrote the talky script -- let the decent story plod along at a sluggish pace and crucially fail to generate much in the way of suspense. Fortunately, the filmmakers still toss in a fairly explicit sex scene between Cris and Corinna in order to alleviate the tedium to a moderate degree. While this movie does manage to deliver some excitement towards the end, it's basically too little too late. Horst Frank fares best as smoothly ruthless ringleader Himmel. Further marred by cruddy dubbing (poor Hauer gets saddled with a ridiculously out of place British accent!), a cheesy synthesizer, and the world's oldest and lamest surprise plot twist, this pretty pedestrian affair rates as a strictly passable time-waster at best.

56DeSoto Finally, after much hard work and searching, I found a Rutger Hauer movie that is worse than Beyond Justice (which co-starred Omar Sharif and Elliot Gould!). Had to dig deep, but this confused film takes the cake. It's dated, not just by the fluffy hairstyles and constant cigarette puffing, but also by the unfortunate synthesizer soundtrack. The plot, what there is of it, is hard to follow and none of the characters are particularly likable. The dubbing is distracting. The film comes across as muddy on many levels, though some of that may be due to the iffy DVD transfer. So why 3 stars? Because it has Rutger Hauer and I'll watch anything he's in. But that doesn't mean I'll watch it twice...

PVOM One of several early European films US distributers released in order to exploit Hauer's stardom during the eighties. This one is especially hard to find, but could pop up anywhere at random. If it does don't bother, despite your curiosity of seeing a young dashing Hauer. The plot has the standard morally impaired Hauer ripping off his employers, only to be tracked down by them. He falls in love with a rural beauty and wears a trenchcoat (eventually a trademark.) Ambiguity in the performances (Hauer seems bored when he should be getting intense) plot, ending all make this a waste of time and effort. The muddy dubbing certainly doesn't help.