Dr. M (film)

Dr. M. is a 1990 crime film co-written and directed by Claude Chabrol. The film is loosely based on the plot of Fritz Lang's Dr. Mabuse the Gambler, which was in turn based on Mabuse der Spieler by Norbert Jacques.

Plot
In 1999, there is an outbreak of suicides in Berlin. While some of the suicides involve a person just killing themselves, other cause several casualties. With this "epidemic" causing hundreds of deaths, panic starts to creep in both sides of the Berlin Wall. In West Berlin, Lt. Claus Hartman, whose wife killed herself years before the outbreak after finding out she was pregnant, suspects that the suicides are really caused by a lone madman, Dr. Marsfeldt, who is using a form of mass hypnosis. His investigations lead him to a woman whose image is being used to manipulate the populace.

Critical reception
Steve Simels of Entertainment Weekly gave the film a C−:

"[T]his is a standard-grade, low-budget European B movie. The plotting is absurd (with anachronistic elements; though the film is set in the future, the Berlin Wall has not yet come down); the stars — including the still fetching Jennifer Beals and the usually cool Alan Bates (doing what seems like an eccentric imitation of Albert Finney doing Hercule Poirot) — either overact or sleepwalk; and the pacing is lethargic verging on comatose."

Jackson Adler of TV Guide gave the film 3 out of 4 stars:

"Club Extinction is something of a mishmash. But it's a mostly engaging mishmash with Chabrol operating in a satirically sinister mode that should come as no surprise to his devotees... In contrast to many American genre pictures, the problems with Club Extinction stem from aiming too high rather than too low... [M]ostly to Chabrol's credit, the going never gets boring, no matter how many times one views it. Club Extinction is an absorbing and even amusing thriller with brains--even if it does take more brains than should be necessary to follow its helter-skelter plot."

Home media
The film was released in the United States as Club Extinction on VHS.