Dr. Caligari

Stephen Sayadian's "Dr. Caligari" (1989) is a phantasmagorical fever dream that plunges viewers into a world more disconcerting and distorted than the distorted sets of its silent film inspiration, "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari". This film is a testament to the enduring power of German Expressionism, a perverse pastiche of its visual and psychological hallmarks warped through a lens of '80s cult cinema sensibilities.

At the heart of this bizarre spectacle is the asylum of Dr. Caligari's granddaughter, a cold and clinical space saturated with lurid neon colors reminiscent of a warped Dick Tracy comic panel. Here, sexual deviance is not merely a pathology but the very subject of experimentation. The film's psychosexual explorations are brazen and exploitative, channeling a dark, camp energy that borders on the parodic.

Sayadian uses dialogue as a weapon of disorientation. Characters deliver absurdist, stilted lines with unnerving artificiality, their words less meaningful utterances than sonic textures adding to the film's unsettling atmosphere. This mockery of 'arty' pretension contributes to the film's blackly comedic tone, as does the gleeful revelry in its own exploitation.

While some might admire its visual boldness and thematic provocations, "Dr. Caligari" is undeniably a film of extremes. Its blend of jarring style, sexual explicitness, and absurdist humor isn't crafted for a broad audience. Those with stomachs for the bizarre, a taste for the transgressive, and a fondness for the stylistic legacy of German Expressionism will find this film an intoxicating, if deeply flawed, curiosity. It's a warped mirror reflecting both the anxieties and guilty pleasures of its era, a fever dream of psychosexual perversion that remains both repellent and oddly compelling.

I saw this flick when it first came out and just recently re-discovered it on the 2 for $5.00 table at the local video store. YOW it is goofier than I remember. High-1980's weirdness. A bit of the incomprehensible nutty flavor you'd expect from an Alfred Jarry play, minus the gravity. Dreadful production values, but cool costumes and great innovative homemade sets - really cool overall look and feel. Entertaining, clever, creepy and crappy all at the same time. The script?!?! Err...unique...(how's that for diplomacy?). One of a kind film.

Belongs in the same category as Liquid Sky and the first couple of years of music videos made for MTV.

With all of the insane and colorful zest of a Douglas Sirk melodrama, the similarly unnatural bodily horror dysplazia of VIDEODROME, some incredibly witty, well written and razor-sharp dialogue to rival the likes of FASTER, PUSSYCAT KILL! KILL!! And even HEATHERS, finished off with equal parts ERASERHEAD. FORBIDDEN ZONE and THE CORPSE GRINDERS, the resulting abortion emerges as director Stephen Sayadian's brilliant, long overdue sequel (of sorts... not really, though!) to the 1919 classic German expressionist CABINET OF DR. CALIGARI, this more recent incarnation, also titled DR. CALIGARI, reaches such insanely overblown, expressionistic and unlikely comedic heighths, that it is an immensely bizarre and enjoyably welcome, diverting hoot of a bad acid trip that consistently veers off in the opposite direction from the atypical genre fare one might easily anticipate from such efforts, that it really does emerge as a wholly original and consistently first rate breath of fresh abstraction, quite apart, above and far beyond anything one might wish to compare it to... the mere fact that DR. CALIGARI was produced, released and exists at all justifies it as achieving meritorious mention as the unheralded and unsung art/sex/grindhouse classic that it truly is, rightly belonging alongside all those other, better known underground cult classics of the last fifty years, and, to my reasonably well-educated, informed cinematic estimation, is nothing short of a minor masterpiece and truly one of the very finest horror comedies in all of film history.... That being so firmly stated : UNLESS sustained representations of abnormal psychology and psychotic situations, every kind of aberrant sexuality, highly stylized instances of day-glo color schemes, synchronized avant-garde staging beyond any rational, functional or logical reasoning and some of the funniest, most ridiculously realized puns & double entendres ever to appear so intentionally, consistently rhythmic and delivered with such hyper-realized absurdist aplomb as you're ever likely to experience from any other title in the library of contemporary adult genre films... If any of that doesn't exactly sound like your particular cup of angel dust, then I would earnestly suggest that you definitely steer clear of this queer grand guignol melting pot of ideas, genres and psyches! Sure, the film is far from perfect, but hell, even SUNSET BOULEVARD had it's fair share of mis-steps!

This movie has all the tastelessness of an early John Waters film coupled with a Dali like surrealism. This is one of my favorite films of all time (which probably speaks volumes about my own mental health). It flaunts modern convention of cinema and social morays both, the doctor is both hateful yet strangely attractive, the way one might stare at a twisted corpse that has been run over by a train. It's horrific, yet we can't take our eyes off of it.

And of course it co-stars the late Fox Harris, known for his portrayal of the creator of the neutron bomb in Repoman as well as the cheesy lounge singer in Straight to Hell, along with a long string of other B-movies.

This movie is not for everyone, but everyone should see it, especially in large groups where you, the enlightened, can watch them and laugh more at their reactions than at the movie itself!

And by the way, Aunt Bea still gives me randy pants!

Chincilla, chincilla, chinchilla!

I first saw this movie when I was about 14. I didn't really get it. It was definitely...different. Anyway, years later I had help from Mr.Leary's friend and finally figured out what it was about. It's about screwing with your head and making you enjoy it. Great impressionist sets and lighting. Truly bizarre acting and dialogue. Sometimes someone will just pop out of the bottom of the frame, say something and then drop back out of frame. The days of enhancing my viewing experiences are over, but I carry many fond memories of this film with me. Good luck finding a copy...a used one is your best bet.