The Death King (German: Der Todesking) is a 1990 German avant-garde horror anthology film directed by Jörg Buttgereit (Nekromantik). The film consists of seven segments, each attributed to a different day of the week, centered around the subject of death, all framed by a time-lapsed shot of a decaying human corpse.
This film provides examples of the following tropes:
- The Aloner: The man in "Monday" is so lonely that only one life-form has ever showed him any sort of kindness in his entire life — his pet goldfish. The fish's death is what finally sends him over the edge.
- Anthology Film: A series of seven episodes exploring the topic of death and suicide, framed by a vision of a rotting human corpse.
- Ax-Crazy: The young woman in "Saturday" who shoots up the audience at a rock concert is clearly not all there mentally.
- The Cameo: The frontman of the band in the "Saturday" segment is played by Bela B., drummer of the German rock band Die Ärzte.
- Central Theme: Death, particularly of the violent sort, and suicide.
- Cyanide Pill: At the end of "Monday", the subject swallows a poison pill and dies in his bathtub.
- Driven to Suicide: A recurring subject in the film, with six of the seven segments exploring the topic in some way.
- "Monday" depicts a man coming home, calling his workplace to announce his resignation, writing cryptic messages, and then cleaning his apartment one last time before committing suicide by Cyanide Pill in his bathtub.
- "Tuesday" ends with a man's murder of his girlfriend revealed as being presented on a television screen in a room where another man has hanged himself.
- In "Wednesday", a man, distraught over his unhappy marriage which culminated in the murder of his wife, asks a young woman to shoot him, only to grab the gun and turn it on himself.
- "Thursday" contains a list of people who have committed suicide by jumping from a certain bridge.
- In "Friday", a woman receives a chain letter urging her to kill herself, but thankfully ignores it, ripping it up and throwing it away.
- In "Sunday", a clearly depressed man violently bashes his head against a nearby wall until he finally succumbs to brain damage.
- Leave the Camera Running: The "Thursday" segment consists of a single prolonged shot of a motorway bridge somewhere in Germany, accompanied by text listing the names, ages, and occupations of people who have committed suicide by jumping from it.
- Shout-Out: The video store in "Tuesday" carries an ad for the director's own Nekromantik while the store itself is named after Videodrome.
