This article is about the 1982 film. For other uses, see Fan and The Fan.
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Der Fan (transl.The Fan) is a 1982 West Germanhorrorthriller film directed by Eckhart Schmidt. The film follows a disturbed teenage girl's obsessive love for a pop singer named R who, after meeting her, eventually reveals that he does not love her back, leading to disastrous consequences.
Simone loves a new wave-style pop singer known only as R and does nothing else but listen to his music and write him fan letters. She does not eat, she does not sleep, and she starts skipping class. Every day she waits at the local post office in hopes that a letter from R has come for her. This fixation on R has consumed her entire persona, and she has internalized all her passions into a lifeless shell. When Simone finally meets R at an autograph session outside a television studio, she freezes up and faints.
R instantly takes a liking to her, inviting her into his dressing room and to the rehearsal of his show. Much to his entourage's dismay, he leaves without revealing his next move and takes Simone back to a friend's apartment to which he has the keys. After having sex with her, R tells Simone he will leave, crushing her fantasies of a life with him. She bludgeons him to death with a statue, then carves up his body and places his dismembered parts in the freezer. She then cooks and eats his body piece by piece. When only his bones are left, she grinds them into ashes and scatters them outside the television studio.
A bulletin reporting the mysterious disappearance of R emerges on the news just as a shaven-headed Simone returns to her parents. She writes him a final fan letter, stating that he will always be a part of her, and that she missed her period.
Production
The film received funding from the Bayerische Filmförderung and the Filmförderungsanstalt (FFA). Director Eckhart Schmidt later said that after the FFA initially rejected the project, he revised the story so that its events were presented as a dream in order to secure financing.
Désirée Nosbusch later said that she had been assured before filming that very little of her body would be shown, but that nude images from the production were subsequently published without her knowledge. She said she felt humiliated by the experience, although she and Schmidt later reconciled.
Release
Under the working title Trance, the film was shot in Ulm and Munich and premiered at the Europa cinema in Stuttgart on 4 June 1982.
The film's home-video release was placed on West Germany's list of media harmful to minors in January 1983, with the authorities citing its depictions of murder and dismemberment. It was removed from the list in 2003.
In 2026, Fun City Editions completed a new 4K restoration of Der Fan from the original 35 mm camera negative. The restoration also reinstated the film's original stereo soundtrack, presented for the first time since its original German theatrical release in 1982.
The restored version opened at the Metrograph in New York City on 28 August 2026, marking the film's first official theatrical release in the United States. It subsequently received additional theatrical bookings in the country.
Home media
In 2015, Mondo Macabro released Der Fan on Blu-ray and DVD. The edition featured a new high-definition transfer sourced from the original negative, German and English audio tracks, English subtitles, and an interview with director Eckhart Schmidt.
Fun City Editions announced a Blu-ray edition of the restoration for early 2027.
Reception
Retrospective reviews have generally emphasized the film's psychological and sexual themes. Vice praised Schmidt's handling of the film's psychosexual tension and interpreted the relationship between Simone and R as reflecting themes of celebrity worship, propaganda and authoritarianism. Mondo Digital described the film as a slow-building psychological horror whose later developments have helped it acquire a cult following, drawing comparisons with Audition.
Kat Ellinger of Diabolique Magazine praised Désirée Nosbusch's restrained performance, noting the contrast between Simone's emotional detachment and the obsessive behaviour beneath it. Ellinger described the film as a distinctive example of West German psychological horror and a cult work of 1980s European genre cinema.
In 2025, the British Film Institute included Der Fan in its list of "10 great German horror films".
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