A mostly solid melodrama with some really fun and inventive fantasy horror elements that elevate it to an interesting curiosity. Paul Wegener is enjoyably yet sinisterly pompous and self-aggrandizing as an Aleister Crowley type character, and the location shooting in France along with the more German expressionistic sets are wonderful to look at. Kinda feels more along the lines of a Chaney/Browning collaboration if anything, with some level of anticipation of the upcoming Universal Monsters cycle, in particular James Whale's Frankenstein with the climax.
A mostly solid melodrama with some really fun and inventive fantasy horror elements that elevate it to an interesting curiosity. Paul Wegener is enjoyably yet sinisterly pompous and self-aggrandizing as an Aleister Crowley type character, and the location shooting in France along with the more German expressionistic sets are wonderful to look at. Kinda feels more along the lines of a Chaney/Browning collaboration if anything, with some level of anticipation of the upcoming Universal Monsters cycle, in particular James Whale's Frankenstein with the climax.
