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Sometimes last century, Holland: When Hans van Harnim (Pierre Brice) arrives at
Professor Wahl's (Robert Boehme) windmill - which is essentially a museum of
gruesome statues set into motion by the mill itself - to write a monography
about the place, he immediately feels something sinister about the place -
& it's not just the macabre statues.
Soon he has an encounter with Elfy (Scilla Gabel), the daughter of the
professor, who is locked away from the world by her father due to her unstable
health, but Hans immediately falls in love with her & they spend a
passionate night together.
However, this love is not made to last as on the very next day Hans realizes
his heart beats for his childhood friend Liselotte (Dany Carrel), which leads
to Elfy making him a scene the following night at the mill ... & dieing !
Half mad by guilt, Hans wants to confess his misdeed to her father, but
instead, he is drugged by Wahl's family doctor Bolem (Wolfgang Preiss) &
embarks on a nightmarish trip, that involves the professor accusing him, Elfy
standing up from her deathbed, & a glimpse of a tied up woman (Liana
Orfei).
When he comes back to his senses, Hans finds Elfy still very much alive, but
the professor mad at him because of his mental state, & he is sent away -
into a better world as it seems, as he soon rekindles his love to Liselotte
& even proposes to her ...
But what about his nightmares, you may ask. They were no nightmares at all
but a devillish scheme of both Professor Wahl & Doctor Bolem to get rid of
the young men, as Elfy really suffers from a strange disease, & only
blood-transfusions from young women can keep her alive, which at the same time
kill the women though - & the professor, always keen on recycling, then
mummifies the corpses & makes them into the macabre statues of his mill
(!).
But Bolem shows remorse & wants to stop killing young women, so he has
developed a serum to bring Elfy back to health permanently, but for that he
needs an extremely rare type of blood - which he has found in Liselotte, whom
he & Wahl soon abduct.
That though brings Hans back into the story, as soon he & his friend
Raab (Marco
Guglielmi) soon start investtigations about the
whereabouts of Liselotte, & their trail leads to the mill when they are
able to identify the above-mentioned tied up girl as Annelore, Raab's
girlfriend.
And while Hans & Raab dash to the mill to save Liselotte & she is
already tied to the operating table, Wahl & Bolem have a fall-out, when
Bolem wants Elfy's hand for his services, & Wahl kills him, but with him
destroys the serum. Mad with despair of having destroyed the only chance to
save his daughter, he sets fire to the mill, & while Hans & Raab manage
to save Liselotte just in the nick of time, the mill goes up in flames, &
Wahl & Elfy with it ...
Colourful Euro-Gothic, that ever so often abandons reason altogether to
follow the logic of a nightmare - which works for the movie, as the story
borrows heavily from Les Yeux sans Visage/Eyes without a Face but
at the same time makes not all that much sense as it is (if taken seriously, of
course). The result is a nice, bizarre little chiller full of pulp motives that
don't always lead anywhere, & a mild dose of eroticism thrown into the mix
(as it contains one of the first bare female nipples [Dany Carrel's, at the
climax, when tied to an operating table] in horror film history).
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