Dr. M (1990)
Directed by Claude Chabrol

Film Synopsis

The police are struggling to make sense of an epidemic of suicides that has suddenly broken out in Berlin for no apparent reason.  The most interesting thing about the deaths is that several of the victims have on their person a badge bearing the instantly recognisable face of Sonja Vogler, whose portrait is visible all around the city on screens promoting the holiday club Theratos.  Sonja is now in a state of terror after receiving a large number of photographs of her, with her eyes pierced, from the suicides.  Inspector Klaus Hartmann begins his investigation into this curious affair, assisted by his loyal friend Stieglitz.  He is surprised to discover that Sonja Vogler is the adopted daughter of the wealthy media magnate Heinrich Marsfeldt, whose vast business empire just happens to include Theratos as a subsidiary.

A colleague in East-Berlin, Moser, makes another bizarre discovery - each and every one of the suicides belonged to the holiday club.  It is beginning to look as if Theratos and its owner, Marsfeldt, are in someway implicated in the spate of deaths.  Sure that they are on to something, Hartmann and Sonja, now lovers, decide to sign up with the holiday club as an ordinary couple.  What they uncover is a conditioning process devised by someone named Dr M - one which can drive people to kill themselves for no obvious reason.  Convinced that Marsfeldt and Dr M are the same person, Moser forces his way into the former's secret hideout - only to have his worst fears confirmed.  Before he dies, Moser manages to warn Hartmann of the monstrous scheme that Dr M is about to put into operation - a mass suicide induced by a television broadcast!  If the maniac gets his way, millions will die.  Hartmann and Sonja have a race against time to prevent another holocaust...