Mord am Höllengrund (2014)

The young freelance artist Sabine Sonntag is a single mother to her 18-year-old son, Ilya, who has never met his father. Both village police officer Peter Asam and museum director Markus Wenger are interested in Sabine, but she keeps them at a distance. Ilya is in a relationship with Cora, though Sabine knows that Cora is cheating on him. Ilya and Cora plan a trip to Lake Garda together. Before the trip, Cora spends the night in a cave at Höllengrund above the village with her friend Dominik Haller, the son of pharmacist Barbara Haller. The cave had recently been exposed by a lightning strike. When Ilya goes to pick Cora up the next day and she is not there, Sabine finds Cora’s body in the cave. Sabine tries in vain to reach Ilya. The next day, Asam finds Ilya’s car, which has broken down, by the side of the road. Assuming that Ilya killed Cora, Sabine conceals her discovery in the cave and begins lying to protect her son. The tense Dominik tells Sabine that he was with Cora in the cabin; Cora went to the cave alone. Sabine returns to the cave with her mother, Margot. Inside, the two women find a skeleton in the earth, and Sabine and Margot take the skull with them. After the police find Cora’s body, Inspector Bach takes over the investigation. Sabine continues to lie to keep suspicion away from her son, but her behavior makes her seem suspicious. According to Peter Asam, shortly beforehand Cora had texted Ilya to say that she no longer loved him and did not want to go to Italy with him. When the skull is stolen, Sabine and Margot tell Inspector Bach about finding the skeleton in the cave. But according to Inspector Bach, the police found no skeleton there. Sabine reconstructs on her computer the face belonging to the skull and recognizes Ilya’s father, Max. She tells Asam that she suspects Max did not simply run away from his responsibilities back then, but was murdered and buried in the cave. According to her theory, when the lightning exposed the cave, the killer tried to make the skeleton disappear, but Cora interrupted him, so he killed her. In desperation, Dominik confesses to his mother that he was at the cave with Cora and accidentally pushed her. Meanwhile, Barbara Haller runs into Ilya, who has returned from Italy. He and Dominik had argued over Cora, after which Ilya hitchhiked to Italy; there, he realized that he had to let Cora go. Ilya leaves a message on Sabine’s voicemail saying that he has returned from Italy. Sabine searches the cave in vain for the skeleton and finds only a single bone. Sabine realizes that Asam, who was already in love with her at the time, had bludgeoned Max when Max became afraid of facing his responsibilities; Cora caught Asam as he was trying to remove the skeleton. Sabine and Wenger, who arrives at the scene, manage to knock Asam down and notify Inspector Bach. Meanwhile, Barbara Haller threatens Ilya with a rifle to protect her son and tries to force him to confess to Cora’s murder. Sabine hears Ilya’s message on her voicemail. She suspects that Barbara Haller is threatening Ilya. Dominik arrives and manages to take the rifle away from his mother. Sabine and Wenger tell Inspector Bach that a shot went off when Barbara was showing them the rifle.