Dr Caligari (USA, 1989)

When I first moved to the UK, back in the late 1980s, I joined the now sadly defunct Scala cinema club. The area around Kings Cross was pretty seedy in those days, and the Scala fitted right in. It offered all-night screenings of cult films, ranging from horror to obscure art house to forgotten classics. And, every now and then, it would show something that could loosely be described as pornographic.

I’ve spoken about the delirious Thundercrack! on the podcast, but the other skin flick in the Scala’s regular rotation was an oddity called Café Flesh, a post-apocalyptic science fiction film about a nightclub where those rendered impotent by radiation could enjoy sex vicariously. I saw it as part of a double-bill one night, and while it was fairly strange, it didn’t quite work for me.

Even so, I was intrigued when I read that Dr Caligari was made by the same people as Café Flesh. Would this succeed where Café Flesh fell short? Yes. The answer is yes.

Dr Caligari is currently streaming on Shudder in the UK.

Synopsis

The storyline of Dr Caligari is minimal, but it’s only really a framework for weird dialogue, weirder characters, and set designs that cry out for some adjective beyond weird. The plot revolves around a power struggle at the Caligari Insane Asylum, where the eponymous doctor works. This Dr Caligari is the granddaughter of the villain of The Cabinet of Dr Caligari (which I reviewed in 2022), continuing her grandfather’s experiments into mind control, just in a hornier way.

When Mrs Van Houten, who is sort of our protagonist, is referred to the asylum to tame her out-of-control libido, the sinister doctor uses her as a test subject. This involves transferring glandular fluids between Van Houten’s brain and that of the murderous cannibal Mr Pratt (Albert Fish with the serial numbers filed off), transferring elements of their personalities between them. This is only the beginning, however, and wanton exchanges of fluids leave the identities of everyone at the asylum in flux.

General Thoughts

I’ve mentioned in previous years how I use the number of screenshots I take as a metric of how visually striking I find a film. Dr Caligari has set a new record. It’s not that this is the most beautiful horror film I’ve seen or even that the visual design is particularly polished, but every single scene has something vibrantly weird happening. For what is obviously a low-budget film, this is a feast for the eyes. It is filled with brash colours, garish lighting, and not a single care for realism.

The connection to the The Cabinet of Dr Caligari is more than just a couple of shared names. The title sequence is peppered with stills from the original, and there is a touch of German expressionism to the set design. There is also no dialogue for the first ten minutes or so, which made me wonder if this was a silent film. It was something of a shock the first time a character spoke.

The acting is mannered and artificial, occasionally downright wooden, but this suits the film perfectly. The dialogue is bizarre, ranging from what could be a William Burroughs cut-up of a student play to skits that wouldn’t be out of place in a Marx Brothers film. I could see obvious influences throughout, including David Lynch, Luis Bunuel, David Cronenberg, and even Ed Wood.

The standout performance comes from John Durbin, playing the cannibalistic Pratt, who channels everyone from Charles Manson to Tim Curry as he goes through his chemically induced personality changes.

Verdict

I am astonished that it’s taken me this long to stumble across Dr Caligari. This is the kind of surrealistic nonsense that sustained me in my youth. It has enough body horror and mind fuckery to satisfy, while perhaps being outside the comfort zone of most horror fans. This is a studiously weird, campy film, and everything from the costumes to the blocking is bonkers.

Even so, Dr Caligari is not a great film, or even a particularly coherent one. It is absolutely compelling, however. While I spent the first act wondering what the hell the point of it all was, I was drawn into the madness as it went on. There is something quite nightmarish about the final act. The film is absurd, but still feels like a real descent into madness.

Dr Caligari will not make my top three this month, but I guarantee it will be in my pick of weirdest films. I don’t understand why this isn’t more of a cult classic. Sure, it’s pretentious and more than a bit silly, but it is one of the more original films I’ve seen. Maybe it’s less than the sum of its parts, but what parts they are…

You’ll have to click through to YouTube to watch this trailer. It’s just too naughty to embed.

The October Horror Movie Challenge

Please do join in and share your own thoughts with us about this or any other films as the month goes on. You can usually find us on Twitter, BlueSky, Reddit, Discord, or lurking in the dark corners of your home.

If you would like to play along at home, my provisional selections are:

We’re All Going to the World’s Fair (USA, 2021)
Tales That Witness Madness (UK, 1973)
When Evil Lurks (Argentina, 2023)
Under Paris (France, 2024)
In a Violent Nature (Canada, 2024)
Torso (Italy, 1973)
Titane (France, 2021)
Rorschach (USA, 2015)
The Coffee Table (Spain, 2024)
Dr Caligari (USA, 1989)
Bit (USA, 2020)
The Guard From Underground (Japan, 1992)
Oddity (Ireland, 2024)
Speak No Evil (Denmark/Netherlands, 2022)
Butcher, Baker, Nightmare Maker (USA, 1982)
Grave Torture (Indonesia, 2024)
Bedlam (USA, 1946)
The Innsmouth School For Girls (USA, 2023)
Daddy’s Head (UK, 2024)
All You Need Is Death (Ireland, 2024)
Eight Eyes (USA/Serbia, 2021)
Poor Things (Ireland/UK/USA, 2023)
Seven Deaths in the Cat’s Eye (Italy, 1973)
Longlegs (USA, 2024)
Night of Fear (Australia, 1973)
Stopmotion (UK, 2024)
Terrifier (USA, 2016)
Azrael (USA, 2024)
Faust (Germany, 1926)
Riki-Oh: The Story of Ricky (Hong Kong, 1991)
I Saw the TV Glow (USA, 2024)

A Final Note

If you have been enticed here by these posts, please do look around at some of our other film reviews. We also have a podcast, called The Good Friends of Jackson Elias, which occasionally covers horror films. If this appeals, you might want to check out some of the following episodes.