Review – Unnatural: The Fruit of Evil

It’s hard to say if this is stiff and awkward because it’s an early talkie, because it was translated from German to English, or merely because it was German to begin with. Erich von Stroheim plays a mad doctor who creates a woman from a mandrake root (grown in the usual spot, with a depraved murderer for a “father”). Sadly for this beautiful creature, the evil that spawned her eventually surfaces, and one by one the men who are attracted to her begin to die. This production turns out to be the worst of both worlds: too simple and straightforward to join the ranks of German Expressionist masterpieces but too awkwardly Germanic to succeed as a plain, old-fashioned horror movie. It manages not to offend, but unfortunately it also manages not to impress. Mildly amusing