- Title: Bodyshock: The Man Who Ate His Lover
- Date: 1st March 2004
- Summary: On the 9th of March 2001, Armin Meiwes, a computer engineer from the tiny village of W?stefeld in Germany, cut off he penis of Bernd Brandes, a software designer from Berlin. Both men tried to eat the penis. But three hours later Brandes was still alive and slowly bleeding to death. Meiwes decided to kill him by stabbing him in the throat. He captured the whole event on videotape. The pair first met on an Internet community of hundreds of supposed cannibals who advertised for willing victims to eat. Brandes arranged a meeting for his mutilation by e-mail, and a month later travelled across Germany to meet Meiwes face-to-face. For these two men this was the realisation of their most extreme erotic fantasies. Brandes, who had previously failed in his attempts to pay prostitutes to mutilate him, kept his fantasies completely secret from everyone else in his life and his disappearance remained unsolved for 18 months. Meiwes had dreamed of eating humans throughout his life, first as a childhood fairytale. Cosseted by his mother and unable to leave the small village where he grew up, Meiwes failed to develop sexually and this drove him back to his fantasies which turned into a cannibalistic fetish and eventually drove him to seek out a real victim. Meiwes ate 20 kilograms of Brandes' flesh over two years after the slaughter. But in 2002 his new Internet postings requesting another victim drew police attention and Meiwes confessed to his crime. Now Meiwes has been tried for murder. Using the testimony of friends, neighbours and colleagues of the two men, this astonishing, and visually powerful film tells the definitive story of these their twisted fantasies and what eventually drove them to the gruesome culmination of their whirlwind romance.
- Description:A documentary exploring the extraordinary story of Armin M.,a forty-one year old man from Rotenberg who advertised for willing victims whom he could kill and eat.
- Broadcaster:Channel 4
- Collection: Channel 4
- Genre:Documentary and Factual
- Producer:Mentorn Media Ltd.
- Programme Episode:Episode 1
- Transmission Date:01/03/2004
- Rights:Worldwide
- Decade: 2000s