First released in 1983, Hostage is an Australian film about Christine (Kerry Mack) and Walter Maresch (Ralph Schicha).

Christine is a young woman who escapes from her abusive father by going on the road with a traveling carnival.  She runs the dart-throwing booth.  It’s a simple life but she’s happy with it.  She has friends and she has freedom.  When Walter, an enigmatic German drifter, joins the carnival, there’s an immediate attraction between him and Christine.  Christine sleeps with him a few times but she makes it clear that she’s not looking for anything serious or permanent.  Walter announces that, if Christine doesn’t marry him, he’s going to shoot himself.  Christine rolls her eyes and leaves his trailer, just to hear a gunshot as she walks away.  At the hospital, Walter refuses to get treated until Christine promises to marry him.

Christine does marry Walter, both to keep him from dying and also because she’s pregnant.  Walter survives his gunshot wound and turns out to be the type of husband who alternates between being wildly romantic and being coldly abusive.  Walter wants to have lot of a children.  He’s upset when Christine gives birth to a girl.  “The next one will be a son!” he announces.  Walter also spends a lot of time complaining about how weak the Australians are compared to the Germans.  And, of course, there’s another huge issue with Walter.

HE’S A NAZI!

Walter is a neo-Nazi.  For whatever reason, it takes Christine forever to figure this out.  Walter drags to Christine to Germany and then gets mad when Christine doesn’t stand along with all of his friends while watching The Triumph of the Will.  Christine opens up Walter’s keepsake box and finds a picture of his father wearing a Nazi uniform and also an iron cross.  Walter’s friends are all blonde Aryan types who are constantly talking about how Germany has lost its way.  And yet Christine doesn’t really seem to get that Walter is a Nazi until Walter starts talking about blowing up buildings and robbing banks.

Eventually, back in Australia, Walter and Christine rob a string of banks and the tabloids are soon describing them as being a modern-day Bonnie and Clyde.  Walter is happy but Christine just wants to grab her daughter and escape from him.  That proves to be easier said than done.  Walter’s not just a Neo-Nazi.  He’s also totally insane….

Amazingly enough, this is based on a true story.  Christine wrote about her ordeal and her book was adapted into Hostage, a film that may look like a typical exploitation film but which is actually a rather engrossing drama about a naive girl who finds herself trapped with a monster.  The film is full of moments that stick with you, like when a policeman comes by Christine’s trailer and manages to totally miss her signals that she’s currently being held, at gunpoint, by Walter.  Kerry Mack and Ralph Schicha both give strong performances as Christine and Walter.  Schicha especially deserves a lot of credit for turning Walter into a believable villain as opposed to just a caricature.  One reason why Walter is so dangerous is because he’s such an idiot and Schicha does a great job of showing what happens when stupidity mixes with confidence.  In one of the film’s more over-the-top moments, Walter and his friend Wolfgang drag Christine to Turkey.  At first, Walter and Wolfgang are cocky but the trip becomes a violent and (literally) bloody disaster.

Hostage brings a real nightmare to life.  Sadly, even after she freed herself of Walter, Christine continued to live a difficult life.  She died of hypothermia in 2019.