It gets spooky before Christmas on Sylt

Many people in the Sylt fire department dream of being able to simply burn down a thatched-roof house. She rarely gets the opportunity to transform the picturesque and expensive huts of the noble German island into a conflagration for training and education purposes. In “Sievers and the Ghost House”, the new film from the immensely successful ZDF series “Nord Nord Mord”, the fire extinguisher's plan has to be stopped first when fire chief Bosse Iwersen (Thomas Niehaus) does one last inspection of the house Relatively fresh female body discovered. Why didn't his colleague Kjell Lassen (Lasse Myhr), who was supposed to do the final tour, see her before? The Sylt inspectors Carl Sievers (Peter Heinrich Brix), Ina Behrendsen (Julia Brendler) and Hinnerk Feldmann (Oliver Wnuk) soon discover that the dead woman is the designated new island clerk, Silke Kasper. The Sylter native went to Berlin shortly after graduating from high school and was now supposed to return to her homeland. Did anyone mind?

What old wounds have been opened here? And why do so many people who walk around the old thatched roof house feel as if it is haunted? You seem to hear voices in the distance. Every now and then tiles just fall off the wall as if by magic. The investigation goes in different directions: Ramona Reuber (Lilly Forgách, who died on December 8, 2024), the owner of the house, wants to see her hut burn down as soon as possible because of lucrative new construction projects. Another tenant in her house had already had a bad time. And then there is the suspicious firefighter Kjell Lassen, who didn't find the body that was apparently lying around. Did the married man have an affair with the victim? His wife, tea shop owner Gesche Lassen (Frida-Lovisa Hamann), swears that her husband is the best person of all – and would never have done something like that.

The timing of a scary episode of the mega-successful Sylt crime thriller seems a bit strange. This film would certainly have fit better into the program around Halloween. After all, the “real” Christmas episode of the series, “Nord Nord Mord – Sievers and the Silent Night”, will now be repeated again in the night program after its first broadcast in December 2021: on Christmas Night, at 1 a.m. But that three-year-old episode wasn't just contemplative either; it tells of “Bad Santa” characters and brutal criminals in Santa Claus costumes. You always have to expect ambiguity and irony in the direction of well-known clichés in Sylt crime thrillers; that's part of the brand core of the humorous crime thriller, so to speak. This time it was written by Katja Toner and directed by Alex Schaad. The duo was already responsible for last year's case, “Nord Nord Mord – Sievers and the Dream of Flying”, which was broadcast around Christmas time.

This time too, fans of the ZDF Sylt crime thriller get what they expect: taciturn secrecy from loner Sievers, who, in a touching way, becomes increasingly closer to his therapist and friend Tabea Krawinkel (Victoria Trauttmansdorff). Of course, Feldmann's constant jealousy and sexual behavior as well as his annoyed rejection by his “roommate” Ina Behrendsen, who is ambivalent about love, don't stop either.

Despite all the lightness, the new case reveals a tragic story towards the end. After all: the final images of the investigators and their loved ones together allow the film to end on a bright, perhaps even Christmassy note. ZDF and the makers of “Nord Nord Mord” cannot complain about a lack of success. Only one of the last ten films in the series had fewer than eight million viewers. Once the ten million sound barrier was even broken. The network movie production is one of the most successful series on German television. That's why the Sylt crime thriller with the beautiful island pictures naturally continues. Five more films have already been confirmed. The next one will be titled “Sievers and the Lost Dog” and can be seen on Saturday, January 20, 2025, 8:15 p.m.