I really thought this movie was going to be about some kind of evil disease. The tagline "Evil is a Virus" obviously threw me off. Makes you wonder whether that was the original German tagline or whether some clever American marketing exec came up with it to sell more DVDs and it really has nothing to do with the original intent, kind of like when the Chinese translate "Live Free or Die Hard" into "Orange Cat Poop" or whatever it is those crazy Chinese linguists do.

"Antibodies" really refers more to the relationship between the Hannibal Lecter-like prisoner Gabriel Engel (Andre Hennicke) and the small-town policeman, Michael Martens (Wotan Wilke Mohring), who visits Engel in the clink. Engel has been put away for 14 murders and Martens visits, trying to solve a murder in his hometown.

Comparisons to "Silence of the Lambs" are so obvious that Engel actually says to Martens: "What did you expect? Hannibal Lecter?" That's sort of the post-modern way of acknowledging your influences while simultaneously distancing yourself from them. And no, it doesn't work at all. Engel is in a cell and he and Martens have lots of chats. The main question Engel poses to Martens is this: "What do you think about when you fuck your wife?" I guess this is supposed to be shocking. Martens has no answer as though answering the question is actually some legitimate ethical dilemma. I suppose if he had said "my throbbing cock" it would have thrown the whole movie off or Engel's head would have exploded.

Frankly, I didn't know what the hell was supposed to be going on until about the last 30 minutes when things clear up plot-wise. Without giving anything away, not that I care about that sort of thing, Martens has a freaky son, Christan (Hauke Diekamp), who likes to show his dick to the locals girls, set fire to his sister's toys, wet his bed, and kill animals. Combine those things with the fact that a girl he was hanging around with got murdered and, well, you get the idea.

"Antibodies" starts with a bang, but devolves into a lot of talking and boredom. If this is the German idea of psychological horror, they're not very creative.