Gloom. The Calendar Killer (now streaming on Amazon Prime Video) has scads of it. Piled up everywhere. In the foreground, in the background, in the corners, in the parts you can’t see. Which is a way of saying this serial killer thriller is a bit bleak, a midwinter darkener that should put an extra pall on about 95 minutes of your January, should you press play on this thing. It’s a German film from director Adolfo J. Kolmerer, starring Luise Heyer as an abused woman and Sabin Tambrea as the emergency-call operator trying to help her. But remember, just because a movie’s a bummer doesn’t mean it’s bad – unless it’s way too much of a bummer.
The Gist: “HIM OR YOU – ONE WILL DIE. 12/6.” It’s scrawled on the wall in blood-red paint. It’s the calling card of the Calendar Killer, a creep who gives someone the date on which he’ll kill them, and when that date comes around, he kills them. The guy likes to plan ahead, it seems. And also apparently give the victim a choice between themself and “him,” whoever “him” is. Guess there’s no debating premeditation, if he ever gets caught and tried. Jules (Tambrea) watches a news report about the killer in-between calls on his job at the “Walk Me Home Helpline.” People, usually women, call the number if they don’t feel safe by themselves on the street, and Jules offers advice and assurance and help if needed. He works in his cozy home, where he lights some Xmas candles for a little December ambience while his daughter snoozes in a nearby room. His father calls multiple times, and he ignores it. Straight to voicemail, Pops.
Jules’ next call on this chilly winter evening is from a heavy breather. A few moments pass before she replies to his queries. “It’s too late. I’m going to be killed tonight,” she says. This is Klara (Heyer). She’s next on the Calendar Killer’s murder list, it seems, and there’s only a few hours left of 12/6. Down to the wire. In the middle of the call, Jules gets a nosebleed. Does it signify something? Is it a harbinger? Foreshadowing? A bit of ominous portent? Maybe it’s just dry in the house. He eventually pries Klara open a bit. She shares that she’s the object of her husband Martin’s (Friedrich Mucke) constant physical and emotional abuse, and the main reason she stays with him is their young daughter. Jules says he understands her situation too well. Lots of women who call the hotline are abused. He takes cues from noises in the background and worries that Klara might be contemplating taking her own life. And sure enough, she shuts the garage door and runs a hose from the tailpipe to the window.
The movie cuts in multiple flashbacks to flesh out these two characters. Klara’s is from earlier that evening, when we get a good dose of Martin’s manly-man toxicity – he tells her how to dress, forces her to eat shrimp even though she doesn’t like it and takes her to a skeevy S&M club where he drugs her and gets his rocks off while others beat on her. Consent isn’t even in the conversation. Still on the phone with Klara, Jules shares a bit of his own trauma, and we jump back to the scene of his wife’s suicide, which plays out concurrently with another awful tragedy. These two have something in common. Maybe if Jules can save Klara from her husband and the Calendar Killer, he can save himself? Or something like that?
What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: The killer’s diabolical-choice M.O. is like the nursery school version of Saw. Robin Williams once played a graveyard-shift radio DJ who spent a whole bunch of movie talking to a caller in The Night Listener, which is also gloomy as all hell. And any movie consisting of a majority of phone-call-based drama inevitably recalls Locke.
Performance Worth Watching: Major David Dastmalchian vibes from Tambrea – a high compliment, mind you – even if it’s a little toned down to match The Calendar Killer’s downbeat tempo.
Memorable Dialogue: A title card sets the tone: “Knowing the date of your death means you are already dying.” Fun! I bet they got that from a Snapple cap.
Sex and Skin: Brief glimpses of action at the S&M bar.
Our Take: The plot of The Calendar Killer is quite the confluence of unfortunate and contrived thriller-movie events – and yes, that includes a twist or two, because without one, the movie might be, I dunno, plausible? Tighten up Sebastian Fitzek and Susanne Schneider’s screenplay and excise the peen-hammer-to-skull overexplanatory subplotty flashbacks, and the movie might be a tight, minimalist thriller that implies things instead of stating them outright. The more plotplotplot, the more holes you’re likely to find, and boy, does this one have some holes.
I will say: Kudos to the movie for developing the characters, where others of its ilk would skimp on such things. Unkudos to the movie for being such a brooding bummer though, with an unrelentingly funereal tone. Has anyone in this movie ever experienced that thing known as happiness? It’s been so long, perhaps they’ve forgotten what it’s like. That’s sad and depressing and you don’t want it to happen to you, or anyone really, but do you want to watch a film that often feels like you’re being smothered in a blanket of gloom?
A charitable reading of The Calendar Killer would point toward its depiction of abuse and what one should do to fight it. What that is, per this movie, I have no idea. Vengefulness in one form or the other is still vengefulness, even if it comes painted with a silver lining of hope like in the film. Either way, the movie essentially asserts that physical, psychological and sexual abuse are all bad, which, well, yes it is. Perhaps we already knew that going in. Perhaps its depiction of desperate people will help victims of abuse feel less alone, and inspire them to seek help, as the script on the screen at the end of the movie encourages, thus dissuading any temptation to label the film exploitation. Which it’s not, really. But it does seem more preoccupied with executing its plot and maintaining a pallbearer’s tone than anything else, thus rendering it intriguing and satisfying on only the most superficial level.
Our Call: The Calendar Killer also fails to balance its dourness with the more nonsensical components of the story. Am I piling on? I might be. Best to be done then: SKIP IT.
John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan.