Dr. Mabuse — once a legendary name in German cinema, conjuring images of shadowy masterminds, hypnotic mind control, and sinister plots to unravel civilization. A figure birthed by Fritz Lang, steeped in noir dread and Weimar paranoia. So of course Jess Franco — the king of zoom-happy sleaze and European jazz-funk incoherence — decided in 1972 that he would grab this legendary name, slap it onto a script written in crayon, and create what can only be described as the discount bin version of a spy thriller filmed entirely inside an abandoned airport terminal and a nudist colony.
The Vengeance of Doctor Mabuse (also known by several aliases, because even it doesn’t want to be found) is the cinematic equivalent of a bowl of cold soup: gray, lukewarm, and likely to give you stomach cramps if you stare at it too long. This isn’t so much a sequel to Lang’s The Thousand Eyes of Dr. Mabuse as it is a drunken karaoke cover of it, performed by people who don’t know the words, the tune, or why they’re on stage in the first place.
Let’s try, as best we can, to explain the “plot.” Dr. Mabuse, who is either alive again, or never died, or is now a concept passed down like a venereal disease, has returned! Sort of. Maybe. Possibly in spirit. There are long stretches of film where he doesn’t appear at all. Or does. He’s played — when he is played — by an actor in a lab coat staring into the middle distance while laughing maniacally at things only Jess Franco’s editor can see.
The rest of the time, we follow a bland secret agent (Fred Williams) with the charisma of a folding chair and the line delivery of someone who learned English phonetically during a windstorm. His job? Stop Dr. Mabuse’s evil plan. What is the plan? World domination, obviously. Via what method? Mind control. Or murder. Or possibly hypnotic seduction using topless telepaths and a jazz band. It’s never clear, but boy does it take a long time not being explained.
There are scenes set in laboratories, nightclubs, back alleys, and what appears to be an empty hotel conference room dressed up with Christmas lights. None of them connect. The movie is edited like someone dropped the reels into a blender and then tried to tape them back together in the order they were sneezed out.
And the dialogue! My God, the dialogue. It’s like Franco discovered Google Translate 30 years before it was invented and fed it a diet of James Bond scripts and cereal box quotes. Characters say things like:
“The danger is invisible — like a virus of the mind… or love.”
Or:
“He controls them… like chess pieces made of fear!”
If you’re not laughing, it’s because you’ve already passed out from sheer confusion.
Now, because this is a Jess Franco film, we are of course treated to the full buffet of his directorial fetishes: endless zooms, nudity for no reason, and characters who stand perfectly still while something vaguely threatening happens off screen. Women exist solely to be seduced, drugged, hypnotized, or all three in the same scene — often while Franco’s camera lovingly zooms in on their navels as though he’s trying to crawl inside.
There’s a female telepath who writhes in a chair while Mabuse monologues about psychic death rays. There’s a nightclub singer who dies mid-song for reasons unclear and unmourned. There’s a scene where two characters have a conversation in what looks like a mattress warehouse lit with green floodlights. Every moment is like watching a fever dream hosted by a drunk lounge act.
The film’s action scenes — and again, we’re using “action” here like one might use “meal” to describe a packet of ketchup — are excruciating. Gunfights where nobody bleeds, fistfights where punches land six inches from their target, and chase scenes that appear to involve actors wandering briskly in the same general direction. There’s a car chase filmed from inside the vehicle, except Franco forgets to show what they’re chasing. The suspense is unbearable — in the way that waiting for a dryer cycle to finish is unbearable.
And let’s not forget the music: a relentless, looping jazz-funk score that sounds like someone took a bongo drum and threw it down a fire escape. Saxophones shriek. Organs blare. Bass lines meander. It’s as if every scene was scored by an aggressive raccoon high on cocaine and Dave Brubeck albums. It never stops. Even when people are dying or plotting or whispering existential nonsense, the music keeps going, like it’s too stubborn to admit the movie is already dead.
Nowhere is Franco’s incompetence more apparent than in the climax. After 80 minutes of wandering, seducing, and mumbling, our hero confronts Mabuse in what appears to be a low-budget planetarium. There’s a switch. A light. Maybe a laser? Someone dies. Maybe both of them. Maybe neither. There is no resolution, only a fade to black followed by credits that roll like they’re escaping a crime scene.
What makes The Vengeance of Doctor Mabuse especially insulting is that it tries — half-heartedly — to convince you it has something to say. Mind control. Government corruption. The death of individual thought. These themes float to the surface like philosophical driftwood, but they’re drowned in Franco’s inability to focus on a scene for more than 12 seconds without zooming into an actress’s elbow.
Final Verdict: 1 out of 5 malfunctioning mind control machines
The Vengeance of Doctor Mabuse is a shambling, sleazy, incoherent mess that disrespects its source material, its audience, and possibly even the laws of physics. Watch it only if you’re conducting a study on what happens when you give a director no money, no script, and no shame. Or if you’re trying to break up with someone and want them to leave your house. This isn’t vengeance — it’s cinematic Stockholm Syndrome.
