A survival trip in a forest near Bremen goes wrong. A participant is found dead with no clear motive. All the evidence in the Bremen crime scene leads to an old acquaintance. Read the review here!
The Bremen crime scene “Fear in the Dark” takes us to the posh Schwachhausen district and a forest near Bremen. A murder happens there. The two city commissioners Linda Selb and Liv Moormann rush through the forest. On Easter Monday A new case has emerged in which too much happens too quickly and a lot falls by the wayside, says crime scene checker Caro Knape.
Three mothers are abandoned in the forest at night by their teenage children – in the middle of nowhere, with no orientation, but with a compass and a small map. What at first sounds like a survival trip is actually supposed to be an educational measure by the helicopter parents. A “Dropping“.
Dropping comes from Holland. Parents send their children into the forest and they are then supposed to find their way outside without any aids – and that is incredibly educationally valuable.
But before the parents actually abandon their teenage children in the forest, they wanted to test for themselves whether it would work.
Well, that didn’t work out so well, right?
Because only two women make it out of the forest alive. One had sneaked away at night and was then found dead in a puddle.
Crime Scene Bremen: Does the “Handyman” have a hand in it?
It quickly becomes clear to Commissioner Linda Selb: That was the cell phone man. The case was a few years ago, but the approach was similar. He sneaks into campers’ tents at night, scans the sleeping women’s faces and opens their own cell phones, then photographs them.
For once, something private from Commissioner Linda Selb
For Commissioner Linda Selb, “Fear in the Dark” is now the tenth case. For once, we as viewers learn something private from the meticulous and almost autistic-seeming investigator. Because she happens to meet her aunt in the posh Schwachhausen district and she reveals a lot to fellow investigator Liv Moormann.
When she was seven, she hacked away at her first computer so much that we didn’t get a phone bill for a year. Until I realized it was Linda. She actually wanted to be a pop star or a hacker. Why she ended up with the police is really a mystery to me.
Little fun fact: The aunt in the film is also actress Luise Wilfram’s aunt in real life.
Conclusion about the crime scene: too fast, too much back and forth
The crime scene Fear of the dark constantly switches back and forth between the dark, gloomy scenes in the forest and the posh, bright Schwachhausen district. It quickly becomes clear that the facade is only perfect on the outside. In reality, envy and jealousy reign supreme and everyone seems to hate each other. The scenes in the forest are told with flashbacks and a kind of countdown. So we as viewers should get to know the dead woman again.
SWR3 crime scene rating: hardly any surprises, logical errors
In my opinion, the Bremen crime scene wants too much. Dropping, bullying, toxic friendships. There are too many characters with even more interwoven stories. The supporting characters react as expected, not surprisingly. The constant flashbacks are almost annoying – for me there is a clear lack of tension here.
Also, logical errors bother me. Why should the three women wander through the forest without even remotely finding a way out, while others who come into the forest in the meantime manage to do so without any problems?
Therefore only two out of 5 moose.
By the way: This time the new crime scene only came on Monday, instead of the usual Sunday. Tatort fans were also treated to a crime thriller at the usual time: the first showed a repeat of “Schattenleben” from Hamburg on Sundays. If you were otherwise occupied, you could watch it again in the media library:
Hamburg crime scene “Shadow Life”
Crime scene repeat from Sunday – that was the case from Hamburg
A house catches fire during a politically motivated action. Accidental or intentional? The investigators Falke and Grosz delve into the Hamburg Flinta* scene. You can read here whether the crime scene was worth seeing.