22/04/2022 - Brace yourself for The Revenge of the Portaloo in this crazy tale helmed by Lukas Rinker

Where do you even start with something like Lukas Rinker's German production Holy Shit!, now showing at the Helsinki-based Night Visions? You could say it continues the proud tradition of movies about people stuck in places they were just planning to visit (or rob, like in 4x4 [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile]). You could say there is something deeply disturbing about the idea of being trapped somewhere, for good, realising that no one’s coming to help and the snacks are all gone. Or you could simply say that it’s about a man slowly bleeding to death inside of a portable toilet. Your call. 

That man is Frank (Thomas Niehaus), an architect on the rise. Ambitious, he is too busy to notice that he has been neglecting his partner and teaming up with an evil developer with daddy issues (Gedeon Burkhard, who looks a bit as if Lambert Wilson has suddenly lost his marbles). When he wakes up in his new, pungent surroundings, with a steel rod sticking out of his hand, it takes him a while to figure out how he got there, as well as to acknowledge that whatever is dripping on his face has nothing to do with a sweaty lady with a yellow hardhat he was dreaming about. We have all been there, I guess. 

What follows is to be expected: Frank wants to get out. But the fact that he can’t feel his hand any more isn’t the only problem, as a demolition is soon supposed to take place in the exact spot he is currently occupying. He can hear it being announced, and when his boss tells the audience that “our architect is tearing himself apart to be with us in this moment,” Frank considers freeing himself 127 Hours [+see also:
trailer
making of
Interview Danny Boyle e James Franco […
film profile] style. He needs to fight for his life, and nothing, not even his ridiculous underwear or a chatty toilet lid, will stop him from trying. It’s funny because it’s stupid. 

To call Rinker’s debut a good movie would be one step too far, but its commitment to craziness and pure idiocy is something to be commended. His characters keep saying things like “this is full of shit” or “this is so shitty of you,” as if there wasn’t enough of that lying around, and the finale alone could serve as Burkhard’s audition for Looney Tunes. 

Also, it makes for a nice addition to the “nastiest toilet scenes in movie history” canon, already including such gems as Ghoulies II, with its tempting tagline of “just when you thought it was safe to go back in the bathroom…” or even Zombieland, sharing its practical “beware of bathrooms” rule. That being said, Frank’s issues have nothing to do with the supernatural – just with people being stupid, greedy and spending way too much time at work. You could say that once you forget about all the excrement, it actually sounds awfully familiar. 

Written and directed by Lukas Rinker, Holy Shit! was produced by Tonio Kellner and Jakob Zapf.