Psychopath (Angst)

The Psychopath is the villain protagonist of the controversial austrian horror-film Angst (1983). The film is loosely based on a real life serial killer known as Werner Kniesek, although the movie events are altered from the real case. In the movie the psychopath talks per voice over about his thoughts and his past as a kid, while doing his crimes. He was portrayed by austrian actor Erwin Leder.

Past
Werner was raised in troublesome relationships with his family. His mother doesn't liked him as a son, his sister tormented him, while the mother was laughing at him. After he was sent to his religious grandmother, he was forced to study in a monastery and become a priest. There was a farm on the monastery, Werner decided to torture a pig with a knife. After the pig's scream was noticed by a nun, Werner got kicked out of the monastery and he could not continue his studies. His grandmother was shocked, as a punishment Werner was sent to his abusive stepfather, who frequently beat him while his sister and mother laughed at him.

Werner then stabbed his mother in the chest with a knife. As a result, he got to the penitentiary for four years. After he was out, he then shot a 70 year old women with a pistol, imprisoning him for ten years.

Present
The movie start's with Werner's first day getting out of prison, giving him an almost instant urge to kill again as soon as he's setted free, stating that it will "happen again". After he encounters two women sitting in a bar, he already start's fantasizing about what he can do with them. After some consideration he decided to go not after them, as there were two other people watching. He then walks into a taxi, noticing the driver as a blonde female.The killer remembers his first girlfriend Anne-Marie, who he describes as a "real slut". He is planning to kill the female driver with his shoe laces, but she becomes suspicious and stops the car. Werner panics and ran out of the car, but nobody seemed to follow him. After he walked for a bit, he found an apparently empty house, guarded by a big front yard with trees. He describes the place as "paradise" and decided to break in. At this point he's really excited, thinking that the house might be occupied. Werner then find's a mentally challenged man in a wheelchair, who's mistaking the killer as his own father.

After Werner waits inside the house, eventually the mother and the sister of the family comes home. Interestingly all three of the family members remembers Werner of his own abusive family, making these three the perfect victims in his perspective.

The psychopath starts ravaging the place, ties the sister with ducktape on a doorknob, then chokes the the mother and ties her up too, leaving her unconscious. While doing so, the son is crawling upstairs, but the killer eventually finds him and drowns him in a bathtub. He then wanted to show the corpse to the mother, but finding her already dead instead. The daughter tells him that the mother needs heart-medicine that are located in the kitchen. They both head to the kitchen, while the daughter tries to seduce the killer, but fails. The killer now desperately tries to save the mother, wanting her to stay alive to watch her dead son. After the killer loses hope in saving her, he performs a violent outburst. After describing his plan got "failed", he now just want's to kill the daugther as the last surviving member, thinking that he will do it with her in "the most precise manner".

After he chased the daughter, he stabs her multiple times with a knife, drinking her blood and vomiting on her. He then lays down on her half naked and sleeps on the corpse. After the psychopath wakes up early in the morning, he steals the car from the family and put's every familiy member in the car's trunk. His next plan is to show his victims the corpses, while the victim is locked in with the dead family, making his next crime even more gruesome. As the killer then drives, he see's photo's of the family members in the car. He mercilessly throws the pictures away, thinking that he does not pity cause he wants to murder more people. He drives to the bar previously where he then see's the same two girls again. The killer was immediately thrilled by the idea to kill the girls, but got interrupted by some policemen drving by. After the policemen confronting him, he willingly open's the car's trunk and show's the dead bodies.

The film ends as a voice-over of a medical record declares that the killer was driven by a sadistic tendency caused by his unstable childhood.

Personality
Werner is the perfect example of a psychopath. He is cruel, remorseless, and sadistic, as he revels in other's suffering. interestingly he does not suffer from any mental illness, meaning that he's not insane, but rather pure evil with a strong dissociative disorder. All of his actions were well-known by him and acted delibaretely. He shows few to no emotion and has no empathy towards others whatsoever. When he kills somebody, he feels great relieve and even happiness. His inhuman desire to cause fear and sorrow to his victims gives him great satisfaction. Werner matches all personality traits that are necessary to identify him as a crystal clear psychopath, including:


 * lack of remorse or guilt


 * superficial feelings


 * emotional cold, lack of empathy


 * lack of willingness and ability to take responsibility for one's own actions


 * need for stimulation (experience hunger)


 * insufficient behavioral control


 * previous behavioral problems


 * lack of realistic, long-term goals


 * impulsiveness


 * irresponsibility


 * devaluation of other people


 * youth crime


 * violation of probation conditions for conditional release

Trivia

 * The torture scenes in the movie were greatly shorten. In the real case Werner tortured the daughter over seven to eleven hours before killing her.