The Prophylactic Predator: Killer Condom Review

Hello once again mortals and welcome to another Halloween movie review! By the forces of collective chanting, or close enough .. a twitter pole, you have collectively commanded me to watch WEIRD monster and spooky movies! The previous review was about a tire that kills called Rubber. However.. Another thing that shares the namesake of that movie spawned a movie of it’s own! A foreign  film. So join me while I review the German movie Kondom Des Grauens, or as it is better known throughout the world…. Killer Condom.

The Big D

Killer Condom had a 1998 (limited)  cinematic release and became available for purchase and later streaming in 2000. The movie is defined as a Horror Comedy and thus is a viable target for me to watch during the Halloween month. Also allow me to reiterate that this movie has indeed seen a cinematic release. It was even a selected candidate for the Berlin Film Festival. It is based on the comic book stories Kondom des Grauens by Ralf König who along with the big man himself the director Martin Walz also wrote the screenplay for this movie. Actors like Udo Samel, Peter Lohmeyer and Leonard Lasink might be unfamiliar names to you all  but I can assure you.. for a movie named Killer Condom they did a mighty fine job! In fact I was really stoked on the acting in this movie! But what I loved more here is the directing.

The Big man behind the screens or the Big D as we call him in line with this movie’s sense of humor is Martin Walz.  A director who mostly directed short films and a German tv series here and there.  The most  stand out title of him being Apokalypse Pink… I want to see that now. Regardless.. while the movie is absolutely ridiculous the director manages to bring it into frame as if everyone in this movie is deadly serious. Even the plot is fairly serious.. so it never feels Scary Movie like levels of cheap.  This is more of a dry humor and WTF is happening kind of humor. It knows it pulp of the highest level but it leans so heavily into this that it actually feels quite distinct. I was expecting American Pie levels of infantile humor but despite being very in  your face but instead  the jokes feel more clever and flowing. There is this sarcastic undertone in the movie that one would have if  you are dealing with this situation so while I almost never give credit to a director.. I really think this movie makes a lot of good choices! … For what it is of course. This is no masterpiece by any means but it is kind of like midnight kebab. You don’t want some fancy kebab after a night of heavy drinking, you don’t care about the flavour profile.. you just want some greasy meat on a bun with rich sauces.. the greasier the better. Mister Walz here choose to make a midnight Kebab rather than a fancy meal.. unlike Rubber who sold midnight kebab but tried to sell it as luxurious dish.

 While obtaining a copy of this movie, I stumbled upon the movie on YouTube where at the time of writing this movie it is still available for watching. It has been there for almost two years now so it is fair game! Well fair enough!.. I still will try to pick up a copy from Germany if the world goes less gaga because I really enjoyed myself with this movie. I must give you a warning though, I speak a fair bit of german, while I did need the subtitles to guide me, I must say I did thoroughly enjoy the  german dialogue. At times it is sharper there is more cleverness to it than the english subtitles show.So some dialogue I might love , could be a tad less entertaining for you if you lack the ability to understand German. It is  mostly a “modifier” though. Bonus points as I had a lot of fun with the subtitles as well. Fun fact H.R. Giger functioned as a creative consultant for this movie. Hansruedi Giger is known for his work in movies like Aliens and Species. So that is a pretty big name! Finally I would like to confess I have not read the comic. So I will not compare how they hold up next to each other and review the movie as it’s own thing.

One “Nutty” Movie

The protagonist of this story is called Luigi Macaroni..which according to IMDB is spelled differently but we never see the name so I will spell it like this so you hear how it sounds correctly in your head! How sweet am I.. thinking about your heads! Luigi is a detective in New York..which already is incredibly funny because he is super Italian in the movie, super german in real life and acting super american. However Luigi is quite special.. he is your run of the mill gruff “noir” style detecive.. but he is heavily into the gay scene. When he meets a young man named Billy at Hotel Quicky, a love hotel in the seedy underbelly of New York he instantly falls in love. However he also has to work a case. In Hotel Quicky 7 guys have had their penisses bitten off by the hookers..but all of them deny it and say it was the condom.
Luigi decides to investigate and to do so he takes Billy to this room .. where stuff went bad. To have a little fun while he investigates. Then he sees a creature looking like a condom. It bites off his left testicle and after that Luigi swears revenge against the creature because no one bites of the Macaroni family jewels and lives.

Not even kidding that is the basic plot of this movie. It goes even stranger by the end so from here on out you have a spoiler warning. The first part is literally the synopsis in my own words but as we go on… we find out that it definitely earns a spot on the list of weird movies. The plot does go over the top ridiculous but manages to stay clear from normal tropes  like “it’s aliens” or it’s a curse. No this movie is surprisingly original in a plot that dare I say it makes some weird form of sense unlikely as it may be.It is a story that deals with themes as Transgender people , Transvestites, Gays and the Adult companion industry. While it has fun with the scenes never does it ridicule them and strangely enough all characters react very realistically to one another. For example Luigi ends up in a weird form of triangle relationship with the young boy Billy and former cop, gone crossdressing entertainer Bob, who now likes to be called Babette. Babette is in love with Luigi and desperately tries anything to get him.  Babette has a cheap shrink who told them that Luigi sounds like a type that is attracted to people like his mother.. so Babette tries to be that, while Luigi can only see her as Bob still, in part because they had a night together and he is gay.. and loathes the idea of having to be with a woman…as his tradional italian family tried to push it on him very much.

There never is too much of a joke about being gay, instead it is very solidly done. At one point a cop has to go undercover and he is dressed up in a leather gimpy harness and you think this is where the movie oversteps its boundaries but we find out that it is Luigi having his fun because the other cop Sam has been kind of rude and lame to him before! The two even bond over the weird event. This movie was made in 1996 and the comic is even older but the themes are still relevant today.. and I think they are explored in mostly harmless and sometimes even entertaining ways. In fact speaking about foresight they have a presidential candidate with comb over hair a red tie and a much much younger trophy wife whose catchphrase is ! Let’s make this country strong again! A hypocrite who adheres to old very old values while being quite a sleazeball himself. Huh!…

Regardless of it’s sober tone the movie also dares to go way beyond in terms of plot.  This involves killing the first killer condom in a creative way.. by creating a fake dick out of a gas hose, then when they bring the thing to a coroner’s office they discover it is actually a living creature that seems to have been artificially designed.Research is needed by they discover a link between a missing scientist and elements of this research. The man made organic rubber for military purposes but killed the project and decided to focus on genetics as well but soon after no one heard of the man before.  Suddenly more condoms show up around the city, mostly still targeting hookers and gays…but eventually even the presidential candidate. Who then of course is out of the race because no one would want a president without a male reproductive organ to lead the country!

Standing Tall

The story goes completely wacky at the end, involving even things like the Millenium Bug into the main part of the plot. There is this very christian hospital director lady who believes the world will end on December 31 of 1999 as the lord will come and judge them all. She wants to have cleansed the city off all all the Sodomy that happens in the city before then. No more homosexuality, no more prositution. So when the professor came to the hospital she kidnapped him and made him use both his sciences ot create the ultimate weapon against Sodomy. To keep him under control she creates a drug filled jelly, which he always craves and he can get in in return for compliance. and by using his genetic skills to splice his living rubber, some sort of pupa and a virus the vil killer condoms were invented. Including a Magnum Queen.

The final encounter is not a gunfight but it is this gloomy/old timer cop making a speech about tolerance, about accepting people who make different life choices than what is said in the bible.  He tells us that god created these people as well ,  while he understands that god wants them to live a good live, isn’t loving another person and caring for them what makes you a human in the first place. The rest of the speech is interrupted by a film noir narration of Luigi saying he did not know what came over when he was speaking and that he hoped that annoying Angelic light and Angelic hymn in the background would stop soon.Since this hospital has a big mental ward a person dressed like an angel also walks in and nods at him approvingly as he continues the speech, while we only hear complaining.

The movie ends incredibly cute as well with the detective going on a small vacation and he gets the boy!  Billy called him Cop as nickname (though in  german it’s a bit more a slangy nickname)  and then Luigi ponders if he wants to quit after this weird case.. he tells Billy he would miss Billy nickname him Cop.. Billy tells him he loves the man and he would call him  Cop for as long as he wants. While the two do a little love play.. “you you say it again” .. Cop.. “again please” Okay.. Cop”  … “One more time please” Kiss me…..Cop.. we pan out for the ending. So while the two also have one of the funniest sex scenes I have seen n a moviie there is also room for cute romance.  In the end i was left with a very weird but strangely engaging movie. I don’t think I could imagine a better story about killer condoms.

The Flacid Stuff

Now this isn’t a perfect movie by any means, it is very one note and rarely veers away from the Killer Condom plot. When we see real live stuff it is mostly complaints about the bitten of Nut.. or how a man with no Penis can not possibly win a presidential election campaign. This movie has no chill or cooldown; it’s 1 hour and 45 minutes of scrotum related jokes.  Oddly entertaining ones but still we never see Luigi kick down with a beer, go watch a game with friends. Either we talk about him being gay, we talk about his transgender friend.. his feelings for Billy, somewhere in between lust and love and of course the Killer Condoms.That can come across as stale…yet they also explain this by making it a Macaroni family trait to get so obessed.Don’t expect deep characters and more so a list of which person slept with another.

Of course this movie tells about the seedy side of the gay scene and not your regular run of the mill standard couple. This isn’t Mitchell Pritchett and Cameron Tucker from  Modern family. No this is about the guys who sleep around. I know that here at least those guys are still part of the active gay scene. They are just as real and out there as the monogamous romantic ones but it can be a bit confronting how straightforward they are about this. Love comes into play but Luigi is still “that type”. The stereotype people look down on the most. Given his looks and age though.. it seems very plausible that he would fall in that “seedier” side of things.I should not even count it as seedy as to each their own and if that makes them happy good on them.Still these are not the type of guys you want in the front and center of your picture, these are the guys you kinda try to hide in the back. That might make the protagonist a tad unlikeable.

Sometimes the humor goes a bit too far. Luigi for example has a 32 centimeter dick!  The idiotic size is used as a plot device for a few things.. like the existence of the condom queen monster, it is the reason Billy falls so very hard for the man and it is probably the reason why the first Condom could only bite off one nut! So once more it isn’t pointless and I doubt this is a writer self insert..but it does feel a bit cheap. His personality screams out that he is a top and that is very much established throughout the movie so again it oddly “fits’ ‘ as both Babette and Billy have clear bottom persona’s and tendencies..but still it feels like too much.. though I doubt Billy would say that.

Then there is the issue of the condom noises. They make almost gremlin-like noises, with shrill laughs and then yelling “wee” when they are launched.  It  feels really weird in comparison how stoic the rest of the movie is. It is very funny to see no one believe the guy that a condom bit of his testicle even though he saw it and was of sound mind.. and the way he just yells “F you guys t wasn’t Billy who bit it of it was a condom creature”  I love that deadpan humor…but then we get condoms that ride rubber duckies while  humming a cheerful song on their way to their next meal..it clashes so heavy with the dryness of the  rest. I would have preferred if the condoms just growled or had some weird insect like sounds like the thing they were based on. Condooms going Woo, Woo.. Teeheehee is kind of adorable in a strange way, in fact at times they kinda sound like Jawa’s I just think that might be a tad too much. Even for a movie about killer Condoms.

You don’t need Protection

I expected to hate the rotten guts out of this movie but for what it is I think we pretty much got the best of what we would have gotten. It’s message is still relevant and it is kind of funny to see a 90’s take on that.. even for that alone it is worth a view. The humor is often cheap but there is a cleverness in both the choice of words and it’s delivery that honestly reminds me a bit of the way dialogue flowed in the anime Keijo!!! Admittedly this is way better in german than in english but even with subtitles it oftenly works. Just .. Germans have a fair bit of extra words that can be combined into a pun. While it really never ever gets scary.. and I don’t think we get more than one fatality this is a funny and unique monster movie to watch. It gets about a 58%  on Rotten Tomatoes and a 5,3 on IMDB but honestly if you can shut off your brain and just enjoy the weirdness this easily provides you a 6.5 out of 10 entertainment.. midnight kebab!

Watch this with some drinks and with some friends and don’t take its impact on a community too serious!  This is a 90’s B movie trough and trough but one that is oddly consistent in the world that it builds. You can see it’s comic roots pretty well because the dialogue is very VERY to the point and that in this movie has it’s charm for me. I did not get scared but..as an grey-sexual , homo-romantic female I have little to do with condoms as it is! Oh right I am single as well.. so yeah pretty good movie for me that kept me entertained… I never had to Troyawn during my sitting but it never got Durexciting either. 

I did not expect the movie as much as I did! While it is easy to point out it’s flaws and cast shade at it for the themes and it’s infantile subject matter.. I don’t feel that is justified! This movie is called Killer Condom… we already know it would be THAT which I could arguable hate about the movie! For what it is I think it does a great job! I dont think anyone could do better. And lucky for you this movie is on YouTube! And since I pay for my blog… I can share this with the world now!

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