Tödliche Wildnis - Sie waren jung und mussten sterben (2000)

Professor Reich, a lecturer at Humboldt University in Berlin, plans to take six of his fourth-semester students of prehistory and early history on an archaeological field trip to the Baltic island of Nordström. They are to spend three weeks excavating a Germanic tribal assembly site there, eating like hunter-gatherers in the meantime, and doing without all luxuries, such as mobile phones. Since taking part is meant to be a reward for good grades and only a few places are available, Reich chooses the students personally. Along with Friedemann, the swot, who is known only as Lutscher, the participants are the female students Anna, Claudia, Mony, Julia, and Elke. The chosen students are delighted, but Elke is troubled because the previous evening she was followed by a stranger from the S-Bahn station to her apartment. Student Lukas is disappointed because only his girlfriend Julia was selected, while he is not allowed to go. He is supposed to look after Mony’s cat. When Mony sees Reich with his wife and two children outside the faculty building, she looks jealously at the happy-looking family. Elke notices Mony’s feelings for Reich, but tells her she has no chance with someone like him. Late that night, Elke is beaten to death in her building’s hallway with a stone sculpture. When Elke does not show up at the meeting point the next morning, the ship carrying Reich and the remaining five students sets off for Nordström. The field trip is accompanied by geologist Dr. Thea Berger, who explains the dangers on the island during the crossing and warns them about a bog that is safe to cross only along a few marked paths. She is also the only person with a mobile phone in case of emergencies. As the group comes ashore in an inflatable dinghy, Friedemann falls and injures his leg. In a clearing in the island’s interior, the group sets up camp with tents and sleeping bags. The following night, Berger sees someone carrying a torch pass her tent and disappear into the woods. She thinks it is Reich, with whom she has an intimate relationship, and follows the person, who is heading toward the bog. There, Berger strays from the path and sinks into the bog. The stranger had previously altered the markings on the safe route through it. The next day, the group realizes that Berger is missing and that her tent is completely empty. Since the inflatable dinghy has also disappeared from the beach, Reich and the students assume Berger left the island on her own. Meanwhile, at Mony’s apartment, Lukas accidentally finds photos of her that show she is having an affair with Reich. He also discovers a paper Mony wrote for her studies that received a much worse grade than his. He breaks into Reich’s office and discovers that Anna, Claudia, and Elke also had poor grades, and that Reich chose the participants based not on their academic performance but, with the exception of Friedemann, on their looks. When Reich’s secretary tells him that Elke was beaten to death with a stone sculpture on the night before the trip, and that it resembles the sculptures in Reich’s office, Lukas believes the professor is the murderer and sets off for Nordström, worried about Julia. On the island, Claudia and Mony clash while working at the tribal assembly site, after Claudia tries to suck up to Reich. Later, while they are at the beach, Claudia sexually harasses Anna, who returns to camp frustrated. Shortly afterward, Claudia is killed on the beach by an arrow. At the same time, back at camp, the group prepares a mushroom soup using mushrooms collected by Reich and Mony. After Julia eats a few mushrooms, she develops a high fever and convulsions. By then, Friedemann’s wound has become infected and is causing severe pain throughout his leg. When Claudia still has not returned to camp late that evening, Reich first searches for her but finds nothing. It is not until the following day that Friedemann, cooling his aching leg in the water, spots the body floating near the shore. Since Anna seems to be the only one who can shoot a bow and arrow, the arrow belongs to her, and she has a motive after being sexually harassed, she comes under suspicion, but vehemently insists she is innocent. At night, the group discovers that Mony secretly took Berger’s backpack of supplies and has been helping herself to them alone. Anna and Mony get into a fierce argument, until Anna hysterically leaves the camp, despite Reich and Friedemann’s efforts to break up the fight. The next morning, Lukas reaches the island and tries to sneak away from camp with Julia, but Reich catches him. Friedemann points out to Reich, Lukas, and Julia that Anna still has not returned to camp. Reich and the students go looking for her and discover Anna’s body on the beach, strangled with a guitar string. The group returns to camp, where Lukas throws Reich’s guitar at their feet; one of its strings is missing. Lukas confronts Reich with his suspicion that he not only chose the female students for their looks, but also murdered Elke. At the same time, Friedemann accuses Reich of bringing him along only as a “fool” so he could impress the female students. A fight breaks out between Reich, Lukas, and Friedemann. Reich is nearly stabbed by Lukas, but Julia pulls Lukas away at the last moment and flees camp with him. At the beach, they realize that the inflatable dinghy Lukas used to reach the island has been destroyed. They then hide on the beach from the others. Friedemann, left behind at camp and cared for only by Mony, is secretly given pills in his tea during the night. He starts hallucinating and runs through the woods in a panic. At a cliff, he finally recognizes the murderer, who pushes him to his death. When Julia and Lukas find Friedemann dead, Lukas sets off for camp armed with his knife to confront Reich. But he finds Reich dead by the campfire, a knife in his chest. Since Mony is the only one left at camp, Lukas is now sure she must be the murderer. As he moves to attack her, she flees from him in a panic, until she falls to her death from a cliff. Everything seems to be all right again for the two last survivors, Lukas and Julia, when a ship approaches the island. However, in the final shot, Julia is seen wearing the necklace of Frau Berger, the woman who sank into the bog.