Short Shear Terror: Forklift Driver Klaus (2001)

Forklift Driver Klaus (Staplerfahrer Klaus - Der erste Arbeitstag) (Germany, 2001 Short)
Rating: ***1/2
Starring:  Konstantin Graudus, Gustav Adolph Artz and Jürgen Kittel

Meet Klaus Weseck, one of the 37,000 professionally trained and employed forklift truck drivers. This is his first day on the job and he (along with the voice of Germany's educational traffic behavior narrator Egon Hoegen) will teach you the proper use of forklifts and the various hazards you can avoid in the work place; like running people over, hands getting chopped off, metal sheets slicing you in half, impalements and even a chainsaw decapitation.

The film, which is ten minutes long, is a dark-parody of instructional videos criss-crossed with the horror rule that anything can be used as a weapon or at least proven dangerous. (in this case a clumsy warehouse forklift) The movie starts out like any other cheesy workplace videos, only to soon splash in cheap but surely delightful grue as every possible sort of accidents befall on anyone. (including Klaus himself) The accidents all get crazier, messier and funnier than the last until we reach something I'm proud to call the "Forklift Massacre!" (Cuz you don't need to step out of the office for an industrial tool massacre!)

The charm of the movie comes from its authentic feel, thanks to Hoegen's stellar voice narration and cartoon cutaways that include a bit of educational tips on forklift handling, adding a bit of irony to the given situation. Anyone with a funny bone for the red stuff, or those looking for a weird short film to share with your friends, will find a swell time around Klaus and his forklift of unintentional doom, so give it a try when you can find it!

Just make sure you wear a hard hat.

Bodycount:
1 male impaled on a forklift, arm sliced off through metal sheet
1 male decapitated by chainsaw
1 male impaled on forklift
1 male sliced in half by metal sheet and a chainsaw
Total: 4