The Canal follows David, a film archivist who discovers that the house he lives in with his wife and child was the site of a grisly murder where a man violently murdered his wife after he found out she was cheating on him. The story hits hard for him, as he has suspicions about his own wife, and when she goes missing and he digs up more disturbing crimes committed in the house, he begins to suspect that something paranormal is occuring. Der Samurai follows a young and inexperienced police officer, Wolski, on patrol in a small German town, who is currently appeasing a wolf that has been threatening the area. On one night, he encounters a katana-wielding figure in a dress wreaking havoc on the community who is quite interested in him.
The first difference between the two films is that The Canal doesn’t effectively heighten tension; David grows more and more frantic, but what he’s reacting to doesn’t change very much. There’s a lot of energy directed to him trying to convince others of the danger he perceives, but as the film progresses there’s not enough of an escalation to make me invested in whether the malevolent forces David is afraid of are real. Der Samurai starts strong with the minor but upsetting threat of the wolf who ransacks yards and who can only be appeased by raw, dripping meat, and from there continues to up the ante and stakes all throughout the film. The Samurai at first is simply unnerving, then progresses to increasing levels of violence as well as psychological warfare. Wolski, an officer who is barely taken seriously by the neighborhood malcontents, is suddenly thrust into a rapidly escalating situation involving a figure who seems inexplicably drawn to him
Secondly, in a psychological thriller, the main character should have some sort of connection to the impending threat, something which shakes up the protagonist's self image and puts them on edge. There is initially a specific figure that David is afraid of who could provide for a foil; the man who murdered his wife in the house David now lives in. But while the film briefly flirts with the implication that David has much in common with the killer, the main source of terror is linked to the house itself after he finds a plethora of articles about other murders, suicides, and occult rituals that have taken place inside, weakening the psychological elements in favor of gore and jump scares. While Der Samurai is far from short on the gore, the Samurai is closely linked to Wolski from the beginning; he sees Wolski as an equal and seems to believe his violent and impulsive actions are a favor towards Wolski. The Samurai is a physical threat to the town, but more importantly, he is a threat to Wolski self-image, and that is the real drive behind the film.
Thirdly, The Canal treats David's occupation as a film archivist as a gimmick to be picked up and dropped; there is a very awkward line in the opening of the film that connects people whose images we see in archival film to ghosts. While the film attempts to make a further connections that the ghosts David fears only can be captured on film, it's not explored nearly enough to be relevant to the story. It's an interesting idea that's not really developed enough to be particularly significant. On the other hand, Wolski's position as a cop is crucial to his character and the film; the Samurai uses Wolski's ineffectiveness as an authority figure and reluctance to use deadly force as a weapon to tease and enrapture Wolski throughout the film. The Samurai's recklessness, wanton violence, and transvestism constrast with Wolski's hesitatance and struggle to live up to the masculine ideal of the cop.
I'm not going to say that Der Samurai is a perfect film; the final confrontation is oddly campy, even for a film with mutiple beheadings and a slow dance in front of a funeral pyre. But it has so much more depth than The Canal and it's a shame that it hasn't been picked up for distribution.
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