Andreas Schnaas

Andreas Schnaas
Andreas Schnaas (left) and Lucio Fulci (right).
Born	(1968-04-01) 1 April 1968 (age 48) Germany
Occupation	Film director
Years active	1990–present
Spouse(s)	Sonja Schnaas
Website	Official Site

Andreas Schnaas (born 1 April 1968 in Hamburg) is a German director and actor, working exclusively in the horror genre. Since he first appeared on the film scene in 1989, Schnaas has become a leader in Germany's ultra-violent low-budget horror film industry.

Andreas Schnaas was born in Hamburg and embraced cinema at a very young age. Since many of the local theaters in his city did not care about how young their patrons were, he was exposed to violent martial arts, zombie films, and splatter very early on in his life. Schnaas' parents were not always pleased with his choice of entertainment, but recognized his artistic talents and vivid imagination. He used this imagination, compounded with his love of horror, to make his first film at age twelve. The film, entitled Hunted, featured Andreas and his friend ruthlessly killing an elderly man, who was played by his grandfather. His father filmed this feature, as well as many other movies that the boys made over the next several years. It was not until 1989, however, that he mustered together five thousand marks - enough to make his first full-length feature.

Shot with his friends over four "extremely long" weekends, Schnaas' gory tale of "Karl the Butcher", entitled Violent Shit, went on to become Germany’s first direct-to-video horror film. An immediate success, the film quickly appeared on video stores in America and throughout the rest of Europe. When asked where he came up with such a vulgar title for his film, the director once explained that a pen pal in New Zealand once playfully told him, “All you’re making is violent shit,” and it stuck. That pen pal grew into producer Ant Timpson, the creator of the ABCs of Death films.

Still spiraling off Violent Shit’s unexpected success, Andreas created his homage to the undead with Zombie 90 - Extreme Pestilence (1990), the English version of which is regarded by some genre fans to have the most hilarious dubbing ever put to celluloid. The following year, he decided to continue the story of Karl with Violent Shit 2: Mother Hold My Hand, eventually releasing it in 1992. Due to an intense fan interest through his official website, Andreas decided to continue the Violent Shit series - filming the third chapter of the trilogy the next year. Budget constraints kept the film from being released for years, but it eventually saw the light of day in 1999 under the title, Violent Shit III: Infantry of Doom (or Zombie Doom in the US). Andreas also played the killer, Karl, in all three films.