Writer/director Karim Ouelhaj’s Belgian horror film Megalomaniac – which won the Jury Prize for Best Feature at the Fantasia Film Festival last year – has been getting a lot of attention for the amount of gore and brutal violence that’s packed into it, and on September 8th Dark Star Pictures will be bringing the film to select theatres in the United States. In anticipation of that release, a US trailer for Megalomaniac has arrived online, and you can check it out in the embed above.
This serial killer story has the following synopsis: Martha and Félix are the children of the Butcher of Mons, a notorious Belgian serial killer from the 1990s. Unstable and riddled with insecurities, Martha (Eline Schumacher) lives vicariously through social media. Her brother, crushed by the family legacy, takes over the father’s killings. Harassed & violently assaulted at work, the docile Martha falls into madness and goes through the looking glass into the strange and terrifying world inhabited by her brother.
Eline Schumacher, Wim Willaert, Benjamin Ramon, Pierre Nisse, and Raphaëlle Lubansu star.
Ouelhaj produced Megalomaniac with Nicolas George and Florence Saâdi. The Fantasia Film Festival described the film as the “most savage” of the director’s four features to date and added: Ouelhaj’s sharp examination of societal anguish blends into this genre-adoring film that no horror devotee would dare miss. Carried by the breathtaking performance of lead actor Eline Schumacher and her descent into insanity, Megalomaniac digs deep into the sordid true story of Belgian serial killer, The Butcher of Mons. Megalomaniac is a nightmare of mystical violence anchored in the reality of female persecution and gendered abuse.
It should be noted that the real case of the Butcher of Mons serial killer, who murdered five women near the Belgian city of Mons in the ’90s, has never officially been solved. So this isn’t a direct telling of the facts of the case.
What did you think of the trailer for Megalomaniac? Will you be catching this movie on the big screen next month – or did you already see it at a festival screening? Let us know by leaving a comment below.