Dr. M. is a 1990 film co-written and directed by Claude Chabrol

Claude Chabrol

Claude Chabrol was a French film director, a member of the French New Wave group of filmmakers who first came to prominence at the end of the 1950s...

. The film is a remake of 1922's Fritz Lang

Fritz Lang

Friedrich Christian Anton "Fritz" Lang was an Austrian-American filmmaker, screenwriter, and occasional film producer and actor. One of the best known émigrés from Germany's school of Expressionism, he was dubbed the "Master of Darkness" by the British Film Institute...

's Dr. Mabuse the Gambler, which was in turn based on Mabuse der Spieler

Doctor Mabuse

Doctor Mabuse is a fictional character created by Norbert Jacques in the novel Dr. Mabuse, der Spieler, and made famous by the three movies director Fritz Lang made about the character; see Dr. Mabuse the Gambler. Although the character was designed deliberately to mimic pulp magazine-style...

by Norbert Jacques

Norbert Jacques

Norbert Jacques was a Luxembourgian german-language novelist and screenwriter. He was born in Luxembourg-Eich, Luxembourg, and died in Koblenz, Germany. He created the character Doctor Mabuse who was a feature of some of his novels, including "Mabuse's Colony". Jacques is known best for his work...

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Plot

In the near future, a deadly epidemic is infecting people throughout West Berlin

West Berlin

West Berlin was a political exclave that existed between 1949 and 1990. It comprised the western regions of Berlin, which were bordered by East Berlin and parts of East Germany. West Berlin consisted of the American, British, and French occupation sectors, which had been established in 1945...

, leading to people taking their own lives

Suicide

Suicide is the act of intentionally causing one's own death. Suicide is often committed out of despair or attributed to some underlying mental disorder, such as depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, alcoholism, or drug abuse...

 to avoid catching it. All the media reports seem like unusual propaganda

Propaganda

Propaganda is a form of communication that is aimed at influencing the attitude of a community toward some cause or position so as to benefit oneself or one's group....

. No one knows what to do or how to help, except for one police officer

Police officer

A police officer is a warranted employee of a police force...

 who suspects that the suicides are really caused by a lone madman

Psychosis

Psychosis means abnormal condition of the mind, and is a generic psychiatric term for a mental state often described as involving a "loss of contact with reality"...

. His investigations lead him to a beautiful, enigmatic woman and the revelation of a sinister plot to manipulate the population through mass hypnosis

Hypnosis

Hypnosis is "a trance state characterized by extreme suggestibility, relaxation and heightened imagination."It is a mental state or imaginative role-enactment . It is usually induced by a procedure known as a hypnotic induction, which is commonly composed of a long series of preliminary...

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Principal cast

Actor	Role
Alan Bates Alan Bates Sir Alan Arthur Bates CBE was an English actor, who came to prominence in the 1960s, a time of high creativity in British cinema, when he demonstrated his versatility in films ranging from the popular children’s story Whistle Down the Wind to the "kitchen sink" drama A Kind of Loving...	Dr. Marsfeldt / Guru]]
Jennifer Beals Jennifer Beals Jennifer Beals is an American actress and a former teen model. She is known for her roles as Alexandra "Alex" Owens in the 1983 film Flashdance, and as Bette Porter on the Showtime drama series The L Word. She earned an NAACP Image Award and a Golden Globe Award nomination for the former...	Sonja Vogler
Jan Niklas Jan Niklas Jan Niklas is a German actor. He is best known for playing in TV films such as Peter The Great, Anastasia: The Mystery of Anna and Anne Frank: The Whole Story. He also played in the Hungarian film Colonel Redl which was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.-Early life:Jan...	Lt. Claus Hartman
Isolde Barth	Mrs. Sehr
Andrew McCarthy Andrew McCarthy Andrew Thomas McCarthy is an American actor. He is known for his roles in the 1980s films St. Elmo's Fire, Mannequin, Weekend at Bernie's, Pretty in Pink, and Less Than Zero, and more recently for his role in the television shows Lipstick Jungle, White Collar and Royal Pains.-Career:McCarthy...	Assassin
Hanns Zischler	Moser
Benoît Régent Benoît Régent Benoît Régent was a French motion-picture actor.He was born in Nantes. He died in Zürich, Switzerland.-Filmography:*Noir comme le souvenir *...à la campagne *En mai, fais ce qu'il te plaît...	Stieglitz
Alexander Radszun	Engler
Jean Benguigui Jean Benguigui Jean Benguigui is a French actor of the screen, stage and on television, he born April 8 1944 in Oran. He is of Jewish descent. In 2006 and 2007 he played the role of impresario Cartoni in a new adaptation of the operetta Le Chanteur de Mexico at the Theatre du Chatelet.-Filmography:* La croisière...	Rolf

Critical reception

Steve Simels of Entertainment Weekly

Entertainment Weekly

Entertainment Weekly is an American magazine, published by the Time division of Time Warner, that covers film, television, music, broadway theatre, books and popular culture...

gave the film a C-:
Jackson Adler of TV Guide

TV Guide

TV Guide is a weekly American magazine with listings of TV shows.In addition to TV listings, the publication features television-related news, celebrity interviews, gossip and film reviews and crossword puzzles...

gave the film 3 out of 4 stars:

Availability

The film was released in the United States as Club Extinction on VHS

VHS

The Video Home System is a consumer-level analog recording videocassette standard developed by Victor Company of Japan ....

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External links

• Scene from the film featuring Andrew McCarthy