After the reunification of Germany and David Hasslehoff's single-handed demolition of the Berlin Wall, the Deutschland became a much different place. East Germans flocked to the West to partake in some of the sweet sweet Capitalism pie and all the cheesy '80s American pop culture that came with it. Newly unemployed customs officials went crazy and patrolled the former borders with no actual authority, hassling Easties trying to migrate West. One such Eastie is Clara, who kills her dirtbag husband so she can be with her boyfriend Artur, who looks like the result of a German DNA smoothie taken from Crispin Glover, Jeffrey Combs, and Anthony Perkins. While he's busy trying to make her play hide the bratwurst on a some soiled mattresses in the gutted remnants of an abandoned building, some crazy old guy wearing a soiled yellow rain slicker and a helmet he stole from a Roman God runs up and starts bashing in Arty's brains with a rock! Clara scares the nutbag off when she cuts his hand with a knife, as a couple driving by in their car continue on their way unconcerned. It's the smart thing to do after all. Helping out strangers who come up banging on your window asking for your help against crazy people wielding dangerous objects usually just makes you the next victim of said objects and your flesh will likely end up on somebody else's body if you're not careful.

Turns out there's more than one psychotic in the supposed promise land of the West, as Clara seeks help at a nearby "hotel", only to find herself in the thrall of a whole family of insane Deutsch bags... ahhhhhh somebody's gotta make the obvious jokes around here... This Brady Bunch out of a Berlin Bellview are a sadistic troupe of Westies who like to capture migrating Easties and turn them into bratwurst linkage Farmer Vincent style! Let's do the introductions, shall we?

Alfred - The group's father figure who runs the compound and is the only one allowed to converse with "Grandpa"... with whom he's possibly working on a traveling ventriloquism act. Did the bad touch with daughter Margit that resulted in his son/grandson Jonny.
Hank - The less-then-stellar Leatherface of the group. Not because he wears masks made of human flesh, but because he's a big retarded product of incest between siblings Dietrich and Brigitte. Hank has freaky locker room sex with Carla at one point, but then she yanks off his yabbos right after. Cuz dem dames is crazy like dat.

Brigitte - Blonde broad who constantly berates her sister Margit for being a dirty dyke. No doubt upset because she's stuck with a "Ricky Shroeder in 'Silver Spoons'" haircut. Winds up cut in half when Artur runs her over with Kurt's truck.
Kurt - Old man who runs the hotel's "front office" and is in love with Brigitte. Think of him as the German equivalent of the Cook circa TCM: as close to a friendly face as the family's going to get, and the guy who picks out which passersby wind up wurst off.
Dietrich - Never seen without his track suit, knit cap, and Hitler mustache. Doesn't really do a whole lot to stand out from the group beyond his track suit and Hitler mustache. He does chase a woman through some overgrowth in tribute to Leatherface's infamous pursuit scene of Sally though, which is cool. Gets his head sawed open like a watermelon by an angry Kurt in a fit of jealous rage when he finds out that Dietrich was the father of Brigitte's retard strong son Hank.
Margit - Lesbian nympho bag of crazy mother of Jonny. She barks like a dog and comes on WAY too aggressive with new people. Takes Clara for her new "girlfriend", thus keeping her from being turned into organ meat by the relatives. Clara repays her with some rape sex topped off with a knife up the ass... that's too kinky even for me.
Jonny - Udo Kier! Crazy border patrol guard who runs around rambling like an idiot during his few scenes. He sets his hair on fire and cuts off his own hand with a meat cleaver, possibly as a political statement... Offspring of an ill-advised tryst between poppa Alfred and his sister/mother Margit. He provides one of the movie's most memorable moments when he appears in Clara's hallucination as a zombie Hitler with a swastika as his mustache.
Grandpa - The mysterious patriarch who will only speak to Alfred... because he's really just a decayed corpse like Mama Bates. As such, Alfred's been the only one allowed to "speak" to him for almost 30 years. Grandpa could make a lot of money in Vegas with the right hand up his pooper.

From here out the rest of the movie is really just a lot of scenes with people running around, shouting German at the top of their lungs, and either mauling victims with chainsaws or tenderizing them with lengths of lead pipe and putting creepy clown masks on their swiftly pulverized heads. It's all a messy blender ride of elements from Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Psycho with a whole lot of political statements and social commentary spiced to order... then again, I'm no scholar in the post-reunification political scene of '90s Germany, so GCM could be a treatise on the mating habits of the Pacific Banana Slug for all I know. Alfred and Kurt are different aspects of Drayton "the Cook" Sawyer's personalities from the first two TCM movies, Dietrich and Jonny are different pieces of the Hitchhiker and Chop Top, Hank of course is Bubba/Leatherface only a little more coherent and lacking the trademark face-wear, and Clara is an amalgam of Sally Hardesty (TCM) and Marion Crane (Psycho) what with her attempt to leave her old life behind her only to wind up fighting for her life in the home of cannibalistic lunatics. Margitte and Brigit are just there because people like to watch women fight and make out and kill people. If it wasn't true, there wouldn't be sites like HeadSickPinUps.com. Tell them tombofanubis.com sent you and maybe they'll give us a free month's service!

I don't know about the political stuff, but as a straight horror flick GCM is a muddled headache. As I said, it's a lot of random scenes thrown together without enough story to hold it together and keep it coherent or interesting. Running at a little under an hour in length, it's thankfully over before you get so overwhelmed with confusion that you need to turn it off prematurely. Of course, had there been a little more effort into the writing rather than the symbolism, there's no reason this couldn't have worked for the casual viewer as well as the politically charged German art school snobs. If I could use my cosmic first-aid kit I'd trim a little of the fat (too many killers, not enough killed) from the cast, slip in a few story implants to enhance the movie's cleavage, and suture it all together with some better editing. Otherwise, German Chainsaw Massacre isn't really worth the effort it takes to track it down. You're better off sticking with something from Troma if your Friday nights need more "message" with their violence.