From Rosa von Praunheim, the controversial director of Red Love and some 30 other films, comes this macabre comedy about religious cults and mind control. The centerpiece is a magical cabaret run by a modern-day Caligari named Madame C. (Lotti Huber), the founder of a sect called Optimal Optimism (or O.O.) which, in return for blind faith, promises a positive reading to any destiny. Two young students, Hannes and Frank, become lost in the labyrinth of cult experience when Frank imagines he is dying from cancer and allows himself to be entranced by Madame, to his lover Hannes' dismay. Photographed by avant-garde stylist Elfi Mikesch (see January 29), Horror Vacui takes its visual impetus from German Expressionist classics such as The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari and Dr. Mabuse. But its theme is an entirely contemporary satire of a variety of religious cults from Baghwans, whose influence is felt in Berlin and Zurich, to the Moonies and the Jim Jones suicide cult.