Fright-stone castle

Enough is enough! After eleven-year-old Stephan (Maurizio Magno) has once again caused stress at school, his mother Melanie (Jana Pallaske) makes a drastic decision: Because she can't take care of him as intensively as he needs right now as a stewardess, she sends him to boarding school without further ado. At Schreckenstein Castle, not only his grades are supposed to improve, but also his behaviour. It's just too bad that after a few initial difficulties he becomes a member of the Knight's Secret Society and, together with his new friends Dampfwalze (Chieloka Nwokolo), Ottokar (Benedict Glöckle), Mücke (Caspar Krzysch) and Strehlau (Eloi Christ), starts a feud with the neighbouring girls' boarding school Rosenfels. When this culminates in the girls being placed in Schreckenstein Castle, chaos seems perfect.

It has taken a long time for Oliver Hassenkamp's popular series of books for young people, Burg Schreckenstein, to make it to the big screen. After 27 books published between 1959 and 1993, radio plays and audio books, screenwriter Christian Limmer and Ralf Huettner have brought the boys of Schreckenstein into the next millennium. For the cinema version, elements from various volumes of the series were taken and relocated to the present day. Even the characters, who were largely taken from the books, were modernized a bit. This is to introduce children who have never read a Schreckenstein book to the popular adventures.

The result is a fairly conventional German children's film. But that's not necessarily to be taken as a negative. True, Huettner (Vincent will Meer) makes use of some overly hackneyed elements. But overall he offers the young target audience an amusing, atmospheric adventure with good actors, a catchy soundtrack and a great location that boys in particular will find really cool. The humor is appropriate for children, pleasantly avoids quite flat gags, as they are so often found in children's films. Admittedly, some very worn-out clichés are used here as well. But children won't mind that and will have a lot of fun.

Even if this modern version of Schreckenstein Castle is not quite as charming as the book, the makers have succeeded in making an entertaining and funny children's film that serves its target audience well in every respect. And since that counts more than that the accompanying parents are also well entertained, there is a clear: Worth seeing!

An article by Frankfurt-Tipp