A Young Man With High Potential (2018)

"Portrait of a Serial Killer - in the Making"

Originally shown in the Discovery Screen strand at last year's London Frightfest, the latest release in the Frightfest Presents series from Signature Entertainment is this grim, dispassionate, never less than fascinating piece from German director Linus de Paoli. 

Piet Carnell (Adam Ild Rohweder) is a brilliant computer sciences university student. He's also painfully shy, agoraphobic, completely socially inadequate and has no experience whatsoever of the opposite sex.

So it's a recipe for disaster when Piet's professor suggests to fellow classmate Klara (Pauline Galazaka) that she becomes his partner for a forthcoming project. Because besides being a girl, she's also attractive, vivacious, and has already been "admired from afar" by Piet.

All goes well at the beginning and the two start to get on. Just when you think our story might be veering towards something other than utter horror Klara spurns Piet's advances and by means of an accident she ends up unconscious at his place. 

       Things go from bad to worse to truly, nerve-tinglingly awful as first Piet undresses her, then gives in to his desires, with terrible consequences. But working out how to deal with what he has done is just the beginning of a long night of self-discovery for our young anti-hero.

A film that refuses to take sides but rather lets you ruminate on the outcome, A YOUNG MAN WITH HIGH POTENTIAL certainly suggests that as a result of the atrocity he commits, which then require him to face and overcome his many neuroses, Piet actually becomes better able to cope with the world at large. That message alone, along with the cold, clinical eye with which the movie observes certain proceedings, means it may be too much for some viewers, but if you're able to stay with it until the end you'll find yourself thinking about this one for long after it's over. I found it fascinating. Whether or not you now want A YOUNG MAN WITH HIGH POTENTIAL in your own head is up to you.

A YOUNG MAN WITH HIGH POTENTIAL is out now on VOD on the Frightfest Presents label from Signature Entertainment