Unnatural Reviews

This oddball sci-fi horror film has madman scientist von Stroheim inseminating a prostitute with the seed of a ruthless murderer. The progeny of this forced fertilization matures into Neff, whose beauty attracts young men by the score and whose evil ways send them to their doom through murder and suicide. Neff, whose wooden appearance and monotone delivery make her seem nothing more than a glassy-looking mannequin, finally falls in love with a boyish Boehm, but just as they are about to consummate their relationship she is shot dead by an insanely jealous von Stroheim, her scientific foster father, exposing his deep-seated incestuous desires. The last eerie moments of this murky film--shot in so much shadow that eyestrain is inevitable--are filled with von Stroheim's Teutonic, immobile face, unflinchingly staring up at the hangman's noose toward which he climbs ever so slowly up the gallows steps while inky fog engulfs him. Though this film takes itself seriously, the comic aspects are inescapable and one laughs where one should gasp.