I’ve been wanting to give this a whirl ever since acquiring it six years ago – as part of the Kino edition of the same director’s THE CABINET OF DR. CALIGARI (1920). However, the result (without taking into account its obvious narrative gaps, being incomplete in this version) is nowhere near as groundbreaking or even compelling as that earlier classic – despite the comparable Expressionist look (including a clock standing in for the face of a skeleton[!] and which is still its best quality).
The plot revolves around a femme fatale called Genuine – hence, the vampire of the title is not of the blood-sucking variety – who had actually been the high priestess of some cult. Due to a clash between factions, she ends up in a slave market (featuring surprising but discreet nudity) and is eventually bought by an eccentric old man (among other things, he likes to doze off while being shaved daily!), who keeps the girl in the cellar of his ‘notorious’ mansion so as to shelter her from the vices of modern life; incidentally, one is never quite sure in which era this is all supposed to be taking place – since the dapper but doddering old man has an Arab, with painted bare chest, for a servant! The irony, then, is that the girl’s own nature – she has a feral countenance and wears a skimpy striped outfit! – is infinitely more dangerous to the young men she enslaves (one of whom sports a highly anachronistic Duran Duran hairdo!). These, in fact, are somehow driven mad (as it stands, the details aren’t very clear – particularly with respect to the old man’s nephew); when the son of his exclusive barber is similarly afflicted, the latter rouses the populace against her and – in a scene which basically replicates Cesare the somnambulist’s fate from the aforementioned THE CABINET OF DR. CALIGARI – she dies in the ensuing pursuit.
In conclusion, the treatment afforded the film isn’t sufficiently gripping to rate it higher than a mere curio at this juncture; besides, it’s all the more disappointing coming from Wiene (who, besides CALIGARI also made the equally influential THE HANDS OF ORLAC [1924]). By the way, another interesting effort of his – the Dostoyevsky adaptation RASKOLNIKOV (1923) – will soon be released on DVD by the budget label Alpha (under the alternate title of CRIME AND PUNISHMENT)…
