Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!

Wonderfully offbeat film!

Best movie of this year hands down!

A film with more than the usual spoiler issues. Talking about it in any detail feels akin to handing you a gift-wrapped present and saying, "I hope you like it -- It's a thriller about a diabolical secret experiment."

Watching this late at night, I kept dozing off and then rewinding to see what I'd missed. This woman who is sometimes seen as a vampire, has incredible power over men. She can get them to do what she wants, even to the point of killing themselves or others. She was kidnapped and sold into slavery and has this rage and craziness in her eyes. Men can't resist her and fall into her traps. We don't know what her motives are other than to seek revenge on those who put her in this position. There is a lot of overacting (a hallmark of the silent cinema anyway) and very little plot. Robert Wiene ("The Cabinet of Dr. Caligary") is just getting started and some of the cinematography is interesting. But over all, it just doesn't do much to captivate the viewer.

First off, I am reviewing the "43 minute condensed version" that is found on KINO's "Cabinet of Dr. Caligari," so this is the longest version currently available on video.It's hard to talk plot line since I have no idea how the somewhat tenuous plot of this version compares to the apparently complete version locked up in Germany, but I can say that the subtitle "A Tale of a Vampire" is erroneous as there is no vampire in this film. The original subtitle is "Tragedy of a Strange House," which is much more accurate to the film in the version I own.While there is very little to go on story-wise, the set design and imagery is fantastic! While of course, the sets look like painted cardboard (because they are), one must ignore that fact and look at the pure artistry put into the set design. There are some truly disturbing images, such as a skeleton with a clock for a head. And while actual camera movement is absent, this is an early example of a film that allows some action to occur at the fringes of the lens instead of dead center (like you are watching a play). This allows for some interesting and startling entrances from Genuine herself.Speaking of startling, there is a scene in a slave market that features two women in a gauze-like material. You can see their breasts clearly, one of the earliest examples of nudity in a mainstream film. The nudity isn't highlighted and isn't used for eroticism, but I was surprised to see nipples so clearly in a movie from 1920.I also must mention the brilliant score. While it is repetitive, it isn't annoying. It seems a perfect fit for such a strange little film. I found the score to be quite complementary to the imagery, and very beautiful as well.This may not be "Caligari," but it shouldn't be dismissed as it seems to have been by others on this forum. And in its full form--if we ever get to see it--it may just be another "Caligari." Short on plot, but a hallucinogenic, dreamlike, and fascinating trip into a strange world. Try it!

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)…

...yes, it's from the same director, Robert Wiene, whose landmark THE CABINET OF DR. CALIGARI was released earlier the very same year, 1920; and, yes, much of the same cinematic technique created for CALIGARI was used here as well. The main differences between the two utterly defeat any chance that GENUINE, at least in the 43-minute "condensation" that appears on the 2002 Kino DVD release, would ever be a tenth as watchable as CALIGARI (or, for that matter, THE HEARTS OF AGE, Orson Welles' self-described "amusement" that spoofed all the surrealist silent European cinema concocted by Wiene, F.W. Murnau, Salvador Dali and the like). First, the sets and makeup of the players are not as flamboyantly odd this time around. Second, the pacing is far too slow for the story. Third, the story is itself far too bizarre and convoluted for a casual viewer to find any interest in; CALIGARI's is relatively straightforward in comparison. If you want a pre-NOSFERATU take on vampires, track down the DVD of LES VAMPIRES instead...