Damnatus

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.
The Enemy is close. The Enemy is watching. The Enemy is here.
"It is said that there are more daemons lurking in the dark than there are stars shining in the sky. But the day will come when the stars stop existing."
Daemon Be'wesh G'guor

Damnatus: The Enemy Within (or to give it its original German name, Damnatus: Der Feind Im Innern) is a Fan Film set in the universe of Warhammer 40,000. It follows a small team of mercenaries recruited by the Imperial inquisition as they attempt to infiltrate a suspected Chaos cult on the planet of Sancta Heroica. It appears that a rogue inquisitor is behind the cult and is attempting to summon a daemon for his own purposes, but the plot goes deeper than that, and it is not long before the heroes find themselves in way over their heads.

Created "by fans, for fans" by Spharentor studios in 2003, it originally enjoyed the full support of Games Workshop. However during post-production, problems arose over Intellectual Property rights due to differences in British and German copyright law and it was subsequently banned from official release. However, some as-yet unknown Magnificent Bastard later leaked it onto the internet and it can now be downloaded *Megaupload seized by the Internazis* for free, complete with English and German subtitles. It can also be downloaded *Ditto*.

Compare and contrast with Ultramarines, the first official Games Workshop movie.


Tropes used in Damnatus include:


  • Action Bomb: Oktavian
  • All There in the Manual: According to the official site, the name of Lessus' frigate is the Banishing Halo. It also has some interesting backstory for the characters that did not crop up in the film itself.
  • Almost-Lethal Weapons: See Badass Normal below.
  • Altum Videtur: As people in the Imperium are wont to do, the characters utter a few phrases of Latin High Gothic during situations of appropriate gravitas.
  • Badass Longcoat: Hiero and Corris.
  • Badass Normal: All of the protagonists bar Nira (who is a level 2 on the Super Weight scale), although Corris and Wodan approach Badass Abnormal when they survive a grenade and an RPG going off right next to them, respectively.
    • Subverted with Oktavian
  • Bait and Switch: A meta-example, the film's official website features a downloadable "soundtrack album", but only one of the songs therein actually features in the film ( "Farewell" by Summoning, which plays over the ending credits)
  • The Berserker: Wodan Dubrovnik
  • Better to Die Than Be Killed: Some of the cultists take this option, as does Osmar, and it is implied that Wodan does the same at the end.
  • Blood From the Mouth: One of the cultists after Osmar stabs him in the neck.
  • Body Snatcher: G'guor
  • Broke Your Arm Punching Out Cthulhu: All the heroes give their lives to try and stop G'guor, an Eldar spirit accompanying them pulls a Thanatos Gambit, and inquisitor Lessus invokes exterminatus on the planet, but the outro voiceover implies that G'guor will still be back someday.
  • The Cameo: Unable to fit space marines into the film, they instead have a Grey Knight contact Lessus at the start of the film (via CGI holographic display) to tell him that the Ordo Malleus strike force has been delayed and he's on his own.
    • The producer's daughter also cameos as the girl with the apple.
  • Camera Abuse: The view starts going swirly whenever there's a lot of Warp energy about - most notably in the ritual scene and Nira's fight against G'gour.
  • Chekhov's Gun: Several of them, most notably Hiero's amulet. Although, it might be more appropriately described as a Chekhov's Gunman...
  • Combat Pragmatist
  • Cosmic Horror Story
  • Crowd Panic: Complete with a bell-ringing doom prophet.
  • Custom Uniform: All the heroes have one. Pretty much everyone else (good or evil) gets robes.
  • Dog Food Diet: Apparently, during a past mission Wodan was forced allowed to eat rats. He is quite nostalgic about it.

Wodan: "I just feel like having a ratburger now. Do you remember the times on Necromunda, Corris? Those were the best!"
Corris: "There the sewer was the most contaminated place."
Wodan: "Yeah! Those were real rats!"

Nira: "A warp storm is coming. Can you feel it?"
Oktavian: "I don't feel, psyker, I see."