A valuable moral, but it is hard to care about the destiny of characters who are depicted as freaks from the beginning. Stunning Peter Lorre-ish performance from Rudolf Hrusinsky, however.

The Cremator is essential viewing if you're a lover of morbid black comedy, the kind of cinema that lies on the delicate border between horror and social satire.

Herz practiced a surrealism that is bare of whimsy and armed with aggression; one image splinters into the next, and, in the opening scene, full of caged beasts, you feel the prowling presence of Kafka.

The Cremator is a stunningly-shot portrait of systemic evil at its most terrifyingly mundane, and provides a watch that is as chilling as it is bleakly humorous.