This classic French horror movie from 1960 has been an inspiration for many filmmakers and audiences for decades. It’s a dark and poetic fairy tale beautifully realized by its director Georges Franju, taken from a novel written by Jean Redon.
We open with a woman driving at night in the rain. Her back seat passenger dressed in a big hat and trench coat but not moving. Arriving at the banks of the Seine, the driver drags out this lifeless body and dumps it in the river. The musical score sounds like this circus merry-go-round from hell and it returns throughout the film when we see this woman on the prowl. We then meet Dr. Genessier who is giving a lecture to a room full of colleagues about a revolutionary skin grafting technique he has been working on. He is a stern and studious man who lives in a hilltop mansion with his assistant, Louise. His beloved daughter Christiane has gone missing and when the police drag a body out of the Seine, the Doctor identifies her as his daughter, when it obviously isn’t. Christiane is actually locked up in the mansion. Her face was horribly disfigured in a fiery automobile accident caused by her father. Ever since he has been obsessed with repairing her face to its former beauty. Until then she wears this smooth white mask at all times. She has essentially been robbed of her identity. All of the mirrors have been removed but she can still see the mask and it frightens her more than her disfigurement.
It is Louise’s job to go into town and look for fresh faces, so to speak, for the Dr. to remove and graft onto his daughter. The face removal scene is one for the ages as it is still effectively gory and gruesome to this day. While Christiane has a new face for a short time the graft doesn’t take and it ends up rotting off. This is another effectively gross scene as we see a series of still photos and her progressively deteriorating face. It’s not too long after they abduct another woman that a couple of police investigators are on to the Doctor. The woman was actually bait and the Doctor took it, but now can these bumbling investigators save her before it's too late. Christiane decides enough is enough and takes matters into her own hands. She free’s the woman and takes out Louise with a scalpel to the neck. She then releases all of the caged animals, the dogs take care of her father, the Doctor, and maul him to death. Christiane calmly and peacefully walks out into nature wearing her signature white mask.