It is a variation on the original legend of Alraune in which a Mad Scientist creates a beautiful but demonic child from the forced union between a woman and a Mandrake root. Not to be confused with the 1918 German version of Alraune.

Hanns Heinz Ewers' grim science-fiction novel Alraune has already been filmed twice when this version was assembled in 1928. In another of his "mad doctor" roles, Paul Wegener plays Professor Brinken, sociopathic scientist who combines the genes of an executed murderer with those of a prostitute. The result is a beautiful young woman named Alraune (Brigitte Helm), who is incapable of feeling any real emotions -- least of all guilt or regret. Upon attaining adulthood, Alraune sets about to seduce and destroy every male who crosses her path. Ultimately, Professor Brinken is hoist on his own petard when he falls hopelessly in love with Alraune himself. Alraune was remade in 1930, with Brigitte Helm repeating her role, and again in 1951, with Hildegarde Knef as the "heroine" and Erich von Stroheim as her misguided mentor.

A scientist, Professor Jakob ten Brinken, interested in the laws of heredity, impregnates a prostitute in a laboratory with the semen of a hanged murderer. The prostitute conceives a female child who has no concept of love, whom the professor adopts. The girl, Alraune, suffers from obsessive sexuality and perverse relationships throughout her life. She learns of her unnatural origins and she avenges herself against the professor.

In the 1800s, a stormy love relationship develops quickly between a young medical student and a woman believing herself to be the daughter of his scientist uncle, the student having never heard of her before their chance encounter and both unaware that she is the result of the scientist's illegal experiments with artificial insemination..

Two suicides take place in the same room of a hotel in Paris. The police investigate the reason why two previous tenants was pushed to hang themselves at that particular place.

Prague, Bohemia, 1820. Balduin, a penniless student, falls in love with Countess Margit, a wealthy noblewoman whom he has saved from drowning.

The bachelor Paul lives as the only man in a household with his mother, his aunts, sisters and cousins. They are annoyed by his teasing.

After receiving an enigmatic message from his eccentric friend, a young man arrives at a boarding house to discover that his friend has vanished under mysterious circumstances. He begins finding himself under the influence of a mysterious power.