| Overview: | In this rarely seen masterwork of the German Expressionist movement, a trilogy of terror is woven around the wax figures of a carnival sideshow.
An idealistic young poet (Wilhelm Dieterle, later to become a Hollywood director) is hired to write stories about the Chamber of Horrors' three most notorious figures: Jack the Ripper (Werner Krauss of "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari"), Ivan the Terrible (Conrad Veidt of "Cabinet..." and "Contraband") and Haroun Al-Raschid (Emil Jannings of "The Blue Angel" and "The Last Laugh"). But as the uncanny tales flow from the poet's pen, he finds himself enveloped in the nightmare worlds of his own creation.
One of the most innovative stylists of the German silent cinema, director Paul Leni ("The Cat and the Canary", "The Man Who Laughs") applied a variety of visual techniques to this ambitious anthology film, drawing from his years as a set designer under the great Max Reinhardt. From the fairy-tale Arabia of the Al-Raschid story (said to have inspired Douglas Fairbanks to make "The Thief of Bagdad"), to the dark and oppressive kingdom of Ivan the Terrible, to the whirling lights and swordlike shadows fo the carnival through which Jack the Ripper stalks the protagonist, Leni managed to raise the techniques fo German Expressionism to new conceptual heights.
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