Vampire hunter Jonathan (Jürgen Jung) embarks on a perilous mission to try and free prisoners from a vampires' castle and encourage them to join in a revolt against the bloodsuckers. Along the way, the coach in which Jonathan is travelling is attacked by two men who kill the driver and his horses and steal Jonathan's vampire killing equipment. Jonathan continues on foot, accompanied by a stranger who later tries to strangle him, before eventually arriving at the castle, where he is captured and tortured.
I've read that German vampire film Jonathan was intended as an anti-fascist allegory, the vampires representing Nazis, with a head vampire (Paul Albert Krumm) who resembles Hitler without a moustache. But even armed with that knowledge, I still found the majority of this arthouse horror completely incomprehensible, director Hans W. Geissendörfer chucking in lots of strange imagery that is presumably symbolic or metaphoric but which left me utterly bewildered.
Why is there a group of young girls in pink frocks at the vampires' castle, and what is the meaning of their dancing? Who is the panting hunchback in the shack surrounded by inverted crucifixes? Why does the girl who shares the shack with the hunchback pour water and dry ice over her leg while singing? Who are the dead people that Jonathan and his travelling companion discover in a farmhouse? Why is there a room full of villagers watching a couple having sex? And how does Jonathan suddenly go from being fully clothed in a barn to being totally naked and straddled by a hot babe?
About the only thing I liked about this baffling pretentious nonsense was the camerawork, with lots of long gliding shots that are technically impressive.
1.5/10, rounded down to 1 for some of the most abhorrent animal cruelty I have seen in a film, a man repeatedly stomping on a poor rat.
