History Film / DasExperiment

* TokenEvilTeammate: Meanwhile, [[FatBastard Eckert]] is clearly the ''worst'' among the guards. Having joined the experiment entirely for fun, [[EstablishingCharacterMoment he's introduced]] by lecherously staring at Dr. Grimm's legs. Eckert proves to be the most sadistic and depraved guard in the entire team, delighting in his newfound power the most. Unlike the [[PunchClockVillain other guards]], [[KnightTemplar who are more or less completely deluded and believe that they're doing the right thing]], Eckert is TheHedonist who only cares about personal amusement, finally crossing MoralEventHorizon when he tries to [[RapeIsASpecialKindOfEvil rape Dr. Grimm]]. [[KickTheSonOfABitch Fittingly]], [[AssholeVictim he's the one guard]] [[KarmicDeath that bites the dust at the end of the film]].

* BarehandedBladeBlock: A variation. The main character stops a knife blade by... gripping it with his hand! It sounds as painful as it actually looks, and the attacker is as perplexed as the defender by the unexpected move. It's made even worth because he apparently can't just open his hand again, so he has to pull the knife out from his closed fist, effectively slicing his palm and fingers even more.

* ForceFeeding: The Guards are given very specific instructions that the Prisoners are to finish their meals. However, one prisoner is lactose intolerant so he cannot consume the standard-issue milk cartons without getting sick (implying that the Professor in charge of the experiment either DidntThinkThisThrough and asked the subjects about any allergies or he deliberately inserted this problem to see how the subjects would respond). The guards decide to hold the prisoner down and force the drink down his throat.

* ForceFeeding: The Guards are given very specific instructions that the Prisoners are to funish their meals. However, one prisoner is lactose intolerant so he cannot consume the standard-issue milk cartons without getting sick (implying that the Professor in charge of the experiment either DidntThinkThisThrough and asked the subjects about any allergies or he deliberately inserted this problem to see how the subjects would respond). The guards decide to hold the prisoner down and force the drink down his throat.

* BreakTheCutie: Bosh proves to be the most reluctant of the Guards, as he helps #77 reach out to Dora, which gets him beaten up by the other Guards when they find out, and thrown among the Prisoners as #53. When he comes across a gun-carrying Eckert, who seemingly shot the head scientist dead, Bosh can't take it anymore and furiously kills him with a fire extinguisher, before sitting down next to the body unresponsively.

It was loosely remade in the U.S. as ''The Experiment'' in 2010, starring Creator/AdrienBrody and Creator/ForestWhitaker.

* RealityEnsues: What many people tend to ignore is that blanks can be downright lethal if the calibre is big enough, or if fired into a sensitive part of the head. Professor Thon is almost killed by a blank accidentally shot near his face, and shortly after Dora uses the same gun to wound a guard in the belly when he comes at her.

''Das Experiment'' is a German PsychologicalThriller directed by Oliver Hirschbiegel (''Film/{{Downfall}}'').

* BecomingTheMask: The film is about 8 regular men acting as prison guards becoming ''too'' overzealous with their roles.

* GoingForTheBigScoop: In the nutshell, the experiment goes pear-shaped because Tarek Fahd, the newspaper spook looking for a good story, [[TheGadfly would continuously]] [[BullyingTheDragon piss off the guards]] ([[OnlyInItForTheMoney who at that point just wanted to get paid]]) until they've had it with him. [[FromBadToWorse And it only went downhill from there...]]

* RealityEnsues: What many people tend to ignore is that blanks can be downright lethal if the calibre is big enough, or if fired into a sensitive part of the head. The head scientist is almost killed by a blank accidentally shot near his face, and shortly after Dora uses the same gun to wound a guard in the belly when he comes at her.
* RecklessGunUsage: Even though it's a blank, Eckert could've potentially [[BoomHeadshot blown the head scientist's brains out]] for real if it wasn't.
* ShamefulStrip: A female scientist who's being held captive by the guards is forced to strip down by Eckert, who then comments on her... grooming habits. Berus objects when he walks in on this, and gives her some clothes to cover herself up.

* CruelAndUnusualDeath: Upon standing up for #77 after he's locked in the ''black box'', Prisoner #82 gets horribly beaten up by the Guards, who then [[BoundandGagged strap him down to a chair and tape his mouth]], unintentionally suffocating him to death when his bloody nose dries up later. We get to see the poor guy die slowly as his suffocated breaths get weaker and weaker.

* MorallyAmbiguousDoctorate: Professor Thon is lead scientist behind the experiment, who chose to turn a blind eye on [[JumpingOffTheSlipperySlope the guards' out-of-line behaviour]] [[ForScience for the sake of his research]]. The ending even outright ''states'' that the damage done by the end [[CouldHaveAvoidedThisPlot could have been prevented]], had the experiment been aborted in time.

* DrunkWithPower: Deconstructed, in that it's shown that both the Guards and the Prisoners ultimately contribute to the escalation. At first the Guards limit themselves to minor abuses such as forcing #82, who's lactose intolerant, to drink his required dosage of milk, but when the prisoners start to riot (largely because of prodding from Prisoner #77, who's a plant from a newspaper looking for a good story) they start resorting to increasingly violent methods to keep control over them. By the end the Guards are beating the Prisoners into comas, keep the junior scientists who are supposed to be monitoring the experiment captive so they can't interfere, and one of them even tries to rape a woman from the staff.