🏆 1 nomination
The premise
A poet is hired by the owner of a wax museum in a circus to write tales about Harun al Raschid, Ivan the Terrible and Jack the Ripper. While writing, the poet and the daughter of the owner, Eva, fantasize the fantastic stories and fall in love for each other.
Horror Vault's take
A struggling poet is commissioned to spin tales around three sinister wax figures — a decadent caliph, a blood-thirsty tsar, and the notorious Jack the Ripper — and as his words flow, the stories come vividly, dangerously alive. Each segment plunges deeper into a different flavor of dread, from opulent Eastern menace to cold Russian brutality to a final, nightmare-drenched chase through fog-shrouded streets. This German Expressionist anthology weaves horror and romance together in visuals that feel like fever dreams carved from shadow and light. One of silent cinema's most ambitious forays into the macabre, it remains a landmark of early fantastique filmmaking.
Content: Depictions Of Torture And Tyranny, Threat And Pursuit Sequences, Period-Typical Portrayals Of Historical Violence
Cast
Emil Jannings
Harun al Raschid
Conrad Veidt
Ivan the Terrible
William Dieterle
The Poet / Assad the Baker / Russian Prince
Werner Krauss
Jack the Ripper / Spring-Heeled Jack
Olga Belajeff
Eva-Maimune-Eine Bojarin
John Gottowt
Owner of the Waxworks
Georg John
Owner of the Panoptikums
Ernst Legal
Poison-Maker of the Czar
Paul Biensfeldt
Grand Vizier
Explore related
Ratings & reviews
No reviews yet — be the first to pass judgment.
Sign in to rate this title and warn (or tempt) the next viewer.
More like this
The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari
1920 · 77m
The Hands of Orlac
1924 · 98m
The Student of Prague
1926 · 133m
Warning Shadows
1923 · 90m
Eerie Tales
1919 · 101m
Tenderness of the Wolves
1973 · 82m
Creature with the Blue Hand
1967 · 87m
Count Dracula
1970 · 98m