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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 absolutely love this movie. It has so many different levels to appreciate. Besides the main twisted storyline that should make any cult movie lover wriggle, there is an interesting use of colors in the film (bright pinks, neon yellows, etc) that reminds me of the Dick Tracy movie. It is also just full of catty one-liners that my friends and I use all the time (i.e., "I know what it's like when a girl needs her prescription filled." and "Ms. Koombs is less aware than the chair that you're squirming in now."). With the strong sexual themes and partial female nudity, I often refer to it as an "art film". I have watched this movie over thirty times, and I still find new symbolism and hidden meanings when I view it each time.

I feel that this movie would especially appeal to fans of the John Waters films (Pink Flamingos, Female Troubles, Desperate Living, etc), but if you're offended by sexual discussions involving drag queens and lesbians, this is NOT the movie for you.

Mrs. Van Houten has shown signs of losing touch with reality, and her husband discusses possible treatment with Dr. Caligari, who says Mrs. Van Houten has a disease of the libido.

The staff want Dr. Caligari removed from their facility due to her controversial experiments with electroshock and hypothalamus injections.

As Dr. Caligari continues experimenting with her patients, her daughter and son-in-law attempt to stop her.

It's sort of a mish mash of dumb. Rather incoherent exposition that puts creative sets and costumes above plot and acting.

It makes for a surreal flick that never quite takes off.

This movie is the greatest piece of absurdist cinema ever. Watching is like an intellectual acid trip through the darkest recesses of your brain. The characters are memorable, the dialogue is unforgettable, the scenery is unbelievable, and the whole is greater than even the sum of all these parts. Best line: "Juice me, baby, I'm a shiver junkie." Best character: the cannibalistic pedophile who is addicted to being electrocuted. Best scene: the surrealistic sex scene between the nymphomaniac and the doll-headed man.

Mrs Van Houten has been acting very strangely. At wits end, her husband checks her into the CIA (Caligari Insane Asylum) run by Dr Caligari. Dr Caligari's methods are highly controversial - extreme and dangerous, as Mrs Van Houten is about to find out.

I wasn't expecting much from this. Just from the plot summary and still shots it looks like B-grade schlock-horror. Turns out it's even worse than that.

If this was standard B-grade schlock horror at least it would have a plot and have some degree of entertainment value. This has nothing of either. The plot is non-existent with the movie largely involving random developments and many random scenes of people in nonsensical poses and situations, like a pretentious performance art exhibition.

No entertainment value either. No "so bad, it's good" effect - this is so bad it's incredibly bad without any accidental comedic moments.

Avoid at all costs.

This is simply one of the strangest films ever made. Directed by Stephen Sayadian, the man that gave you the Sci-Fi Porn Thriller, "Cafe Flesh", "Dr. Caligari" is one of the 80's cult films that is *so* strange, *so* bizarre, that it defies ordinary description. More Mondo than "Forbidden Zone", more inexplicable than "Eraserhead", more indescribable than "Invocation of my Demon Brother", it's a psychotic psychodrama romp semi-sequel to "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari"; it seems Dr. Caligari's grand-daughter has opened her own asylum for the sexually maladjusted, and is experimenting on her patients. Words cannot do this film justice. It's a shame it's out of print. It's totally brilliant!!!

If there was ever an art-house film that existed, this would be it. In other reviews I've discussed the forays into artistic film-making made possible by the Expressionist movement of the 1920's. I've always thought of the 1980's as a decade that served as a revival in its own right, experimenting with abstract and surrealist qualities upon several mediums. Dr. Caligari serves as a possible end of this decade and the experimentation found within. I can discuss topics like New Romanticism from the 80's a bit more in depth but for some of you that might be as interesting as watching water boil.

This film borrows loosely from the original, and I do mean loosely. For one, Caligari is a woman – and hey, change is good – but why is she a sexual deviant? Two, there is mention of an insane asylum much like the 1920 version as well – but that's it. Everything is strewn about in a convoluted, nightmarish heap. Mrs. Van Houten suffers from extreme nymphomania and her husband, Les, seeks possible treatment at the hands of Dr. Caligari. After this small plot detail is established it's basically a free-for-all. There is symbolism portrayed at every turn. You can't make heads or tails of the dialog. Sexual content is found throughout, even more so than violence. The man responsible for the makeup of this film later went on to do the Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy - what an impressive resume he must have! Sexual gratuity wasn't innovative by 1989, but that isn't what makes this film visually comparative to the 1920 silent version.

This film was not shot in black and white, but the stark difference in contrasting colors and lighting techniques are more than similar to the Expressionist output 70 years earlier. This may have served as a point of brilliance had it not been for the sexual ridiculousness that followed. Literally, and I mean literally, everything in this film deals with sex on some level. I really have no idea why they decided to go down that avenue with a film like this – a name which held importance and value in cinema itself! I suppose it's no shock that the director of this version has been responsible for other "artsy" porn films as well, but why on Earth would you choose to dabble with Dr. Caligari? I wasn't offended by the topics explored – just mystified. Was that really the goal here? To take something that held value and make it laughable?

As with all films of this caliber, it has a considerable cult following. If you're an art house fan that doesn't mind trashy, exploitative themes of violence and sexual content, this may be your lucky day. Make no mistake; aside from visual similarities, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari and Dr. Caligari are two very different films.

Stephen Sayadian's (AKA: Rinse Dream)tribute to The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari tops the great style of Cafe Flesh and Night Dreams. A must see for fans of German Expressionism, New Wave (music & sets not film style, Adult humor, Sci-fi, Psychedelic cinema, Cult films and Black Comedy. The plot takes us to a cold, bleak future where the great grand daughter of the original Dr. Caligari is performing psycho-sexual experiments on mentally ill people. Her final "creation" is to switch the personalities of a serial killer cannibal and a nympho housewife, to great results!!! Dialog is delivered in an over the top, mock "arty" way. Characters pose and swish in stiff robotic style and deliver over the top, mock "arty" dialog without missing a beat of this well staged masterpiece. Not for everyone, only for the truly DEVO.

I cannot believe I laid on the opium bed and watched this thing through till the end. The best thing about this film was the bizarre big 80's fashion, and even that was excruciating. I was hoping for some trace evidence of The cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920), no such luck.

This is the visual equivalent of an acid trip. A giant tongue attached to a wall licks a writhing lady. Another woman pops out of nowhere in various scenes saying "Chinchilla! Chinchilla!", then disappears. It is one of the most original movies I have ever seen, you are in for a very different experience if you can get your hands on a copy. You will never ever forget this one....

It is an overly artistic, overly self-aware sex flick masquerading as a sequel to the 1919 film, Das Cabinet des Dr. Caligari. Any real connections to it, aside from its title, are negligible at best.

The Dr.'s alleged great-granddaughter, played by Madeleine Reynal (who looks good in some scenes, while in others, looks deader than her character's great-grandfather) is running a combination sex therapy centre/ lunatic asylum, where nymphomaniacs go for electroshock therapy, and get their prescriptions, and themselves, filled up.

The colour composition and set design was either done by Kraftwerk, or nursery school students, with bright, vivid, over-the-top colours, and hot pink suits and bright yellow telephones against a pitch black background in almost every scene; strikingly askew, yet the only which could hold my attention. Even the nudity was fairly boring.

The actors (and I use that term loosely) strike a pose whenever possible, in attempt to mimic the actors' movements in the original, or just to look silly, to attract a cult following to this film's lunacy? On one hand, it's kind of funny to laugh just at how awful this film is, but when it's passing itself off as a sequel to the first, and one of the finest, horrors ever made, it quickly loses any of its 'so-bad-it's-good' charm.

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.

please, if you are thinking about seeing this movie, do yourself a favor and don't waste your time and money! this is one of the worst films i've ever seen and not in a good way at all. there is nothing funny or enjoyable or moving or even interesting. this film is a pretentious piece of b movie schlock posing itself as an artistic film. hideously failed effort.

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!

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!

I just watched "Dr. Caligari" and I can honestly say that this is the absolute WORST movie I have ever seen!! A friend recommended it to me. He said it was "sort of like a B movie". This was an F movie. The acting was terrible. The sets looked like they were created by a 5 year old. The editing was laughable. I can't believe I wasted a small percentage of my life watching it. I've seen amateur student films that were way better than this!! The only thing I found remotely interesting was that Dr. Caligari has a strong resemblance to Siouxsie Sioux. While watching this piece of crap that passes itself for a movie, I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. You wouldn't believe the relief I felt when I saw "The End" on the screen. The only reason I watched the whole thing was because I told me friend I would. Again, WORST MOVIE EVER!!!

The movie starts off by removing the top of your skull, the pouring liquid scotch guard onto your pituitary gland. You feel as if the t.v. is leaking some sort of radiation of some sort, you run and find a radon detector, but it registers nothing, your borrow your neighbors radiation detector, still nothing.......

It is the tape people, do not fight it, just sit back, laugh and watch it 6 times in a row.

But remember to put the top of your skull back on before you go to bed (things could get messy if not)

This is unquestionably a WTF film. One of those strange films that seem made precisely to test the viewer's resistance to absurdity.

Loosely inspired by Robert Wiene's 1920 classic, takes from it, in addition to the name, a vague inspiration in the expressionist sets of the time and the surrealist theme.

With bright, plasticized colors, and an eroticism worthy of a Rocky Horror Picture Show, it misses, however, the music, the main attraction of the cult gay musical from the seventies. Here, we have some very eighties electronic sounds, which do nothing to help a weak and totally absurd script.

However, there remains a visual richness, in the sets, in the wardrobe, even in the surreal exaggeration with which some characters are embodied.

For some it will be enough to make a cult film. For me, however, it is complete nonsense and a waste of time.

It's better to see Rocky Horror Picture Show again, it's much more fun and above all, it has a memorable soundtrack and characters.

Steven Sayadian co-wrote this film and two others with Jerry Stahl, who was the subject of a Ben Stiller film called Permanent Midnight. The other two films are the X-rated gems entitled "Cafe Flesh" and "Night Dreams." The latter is considered one of the great adult films ever made and for good reason...it's truly amazing! If you liked Caligari you should really check out Night Dreams: yes it is XXX but the style is all surreal and dark with a fair dose of bizarre comedy. Also part of the soundtrack is from Wall of Voodoo! (Their version of Ring of Fire is in one very sexy sequence). Cafe Flesh is less surreal but I highly recommend it for the science fictional-porn plot alone. www.SexyHorrors.com

Oy, I don't know where my friend dug this one up from, but please bury it again. 'Artsy-fartsy crap' is a kind way of describing this goofy train wreck. I was going to give it a 1, but the visuals boosted it to a 2.

It's a shame that Steven Sayadian's career as a writer director

never took off. He might have been recognized as a comic

successor to David Lynch, or something. And, who knows, maybe

we haven't heard the last of him.

This movie is so inventive, so smart, so bold and beautiful. Sure

there are some details that I never really could get behind

("chinchilla chinchilla!") but Dr. Caligari offers so much more than

many more critically acclaimed and successful stuff out there. As a

matter of fact, for my money Dr. Caligari (1989) *easily* surpasses

the original Cabinet of Dr. Caligari in all aspects of cinematic

greatness.

It's not possible to praise Fox Harris and John Durbin enough,

their performances rank among the best I've ever seen on film.

I once wrote SS a fan letter asking if I could audition for his next

film and he was really sweet he phoned me. But sadly, the next

film never happened. I've heard he's a pretty hot number, too!

This is definitely one of the strangest alt-indie-freak films I have seen. The characters are almost caricatures, but their actions are choreographed with their lines as they pose around each other.

Madeline Reynard is electrifying as Dr. Caligari, a descendant of the infamous Caligari. She is working on an insidious plot to transfer personality traits between patients in a mental hospital by swapping brain fluids. Her plans go awry when some staff members catch on and she uses a cannibalistic masochist (Shivver Boy) in her experiments.

I definitely recommend this movie for your collection, if not to scare your "normal" friends but for the giant latex tongue.

This movie is only for one type of film fan, that is the kind of person who loves Lynch, Cronenberg etc.

If you enjoy the weird, quirky and absurd (as I often do) then this movie could give you a few bumps. If not then stay very far away. This is not a mainstream audience movie.

As I mentioned I like unusual films but with any movie being weird or having great action etc isn't enough, a movie has to offer a range of facets to sink your teeth into.

Dr. Caligari fails to offer anything to the viewer but the weird and abstract and its simply not enough.

Some good quirky scenes but nothing else to invest your time on :)

Artistic expression jumps off the screen and into your face! Hauntingly beautiful and highly stylized effort is a nice try, if perhaps a bit off-target. An Expressionistic tribute to the old German silents, now with sex added for slightly more shock value. The actress in the title role is more deadpan than Buster Keaton, but other performances tear up the joint in their far-out histrionics. The dialogue sounds like Lewis Carroll on valium, and the whole effect is like a drug-induced sexual nightmare. Especially effective is Lane Fox as a hospital administrator who gets in touch with his feminine side. David Parry also worth remembering as Fox's repressed chain-smoking son-in-law. And don't miss Tequila Mockingbird as the show-stopping and affectionately wet "door tongue." mik