A film version of a play Fassbinder directed in Hamburg, Clare Booth Luce's The Women. It gave Fassbinder an opportunity to indulge his passion for working with women - there are forty women in the play and no men. The play dates from the 1930s, and Fassbinder was accused by the critics of being anti-women (a frequent criticism of late). As usual, he chose to work against the text, and from this has constructed an entertaining and engaging play about love between upper-class women with nothing better to do than sneer at others when things go wrong with their lives and loves.
Twenty years ago at the infamous Redwood Farm, the owner went mad and killed his family and himself. Shrouded in urban legend ever since, a stranger obsessed with the unsolved Redwood murders convinces a group of bereaved family members to venture into the wilderness in the hope of proving the existence of the notorious burlap bag-masked maniac. Their quest for truth sees a sinister turn of events, as the hunters become the hunted and a blood-soaked fight for survival ensues when they find that the sinister tales told of the axe-wielding psycho farmer are very real indeed.
A famous french actor is poisoned and dies right in the middle of a play. Martin, an actor friend, is soon suspected by the police while being hunted by the mysterious organization which ordered the murder.