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Der Nachtmahr (2015) isn’t just a film; it’s an audio-visual experience created by Akiz, a visual artist with work that spans all types of media. He transfers his proficiency with various media into the film, opening with title cards that not only instruct the viewer to watch the film at full volume for proper effect, but warn of potential epileptic seizures from the prominent use of strobing and bright lights throughout the picture. It’s not without merit - right from the film’s early dance/rave scenes, Der Nachtmahr begins beating you over the head with its intentionally unbalanced visual and auditory highs and lows.

The title cards indicate the use of “binaural frequencies” and “isochronic tones,” warning against something most likely don’t even understand. Binaural frequencies are “auditory brainstem responses which originate in the superior olivary nucleus of each hemisphere. They result from the interaction of two different auditory impulses, originating in opposite ears, below 1000 Hz and which differ in frequency between one and 30 Hz.” Isochronic tones are often paired with binaural frequencies, and “work by emitting sound at regular intervals: the intensity of the sound goes almost directly from 0 to 100 and back again in an evenly-spaced manner. Widely regarded as the most effective tone-based method, isochronic beats produce very strong cortical responses in the brain.”

Akiz’s idea with all this is to achieve a sense of unbalance. The film’s protagonist, Tina (Carolyn Genzkow) is meek and alienated, stuffing herself into social circles and private moments as she wrestles with some powerful inner demons. The film’s rapid shifting between scenes stuffed with powerful techno music and bright lights are backed against moments of relative silence and calm, keeping the viewer on the edge beside Tina. Ironically, many of the film’s scariest moments don’t come from the narrative or the strange monstrous creature that begins to follow Tina, but when a moment of silence suddenly slaps into another rave scene without warning. The unexpected shock of full-volume EDM makes you jump - just as Akiz intends it to.

As The Ink and Code says, “The film sets the mood with a warning about strobe effects that could affect those with epilepsy, followed by a playful suggestion to play the film loudly. A techno soundtrack propels the film forward and is often used to disorient viewers as it shatters scenes that linger on teenage ennui. As Tina, Carolyn Genzkow floats from scene to scene, fluctuating from aloof to terrified. While she effectively conveys the image of a realistic teen, she isn’t given enough to make that realism compelling. There’s a cold distance in which the film was shot, like a voyeur not entirely interested in his subject. We’re there in the moment, but still detached from it as though we’re in a haze induced by the mood-stabilizing drugs Tina is forced to take by her parents.”

Eye for Film shares that opinion by saying, “This is a film that’s all about disorientation, and about youth culture. The confusion of adolescence blends with the intentional pursuit of new psychic experiences and the terror of unwanted experience that could be schizoid in nature or could represent the intrusion of a parallel universe.”

Der Nachtmahr ends up discombobulating the brain through its symbolically ambiguous and intriguing story, which ends in a manner that leaves everything open to interpretation. It’s a trippy picture, and if the mindscrew of its story and structure weren’t enough, the audio/visual assault only adds to its intended disorientation. It’s a specifically-composed genre-buster of a film, and the sensory component is not simply for artistic movement, but is critical to the film’s experience.

The strobing and the noise have something to say, and they’re impossible to ignore.