Review #215: The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920)

This review was originally written in October 2022.

Gabe's 100 Bucket List Horror Films Review #70: The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920)

So... big spoilers ahead for this film. I didn't really like it but if you have any interest in seeing it you'd be better off not knowing where the plot goes.

Said by many to be the first true horror film (which is arguable, there were other movies with dark or macabre subjects before), The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari is a silent film where a man, Francis, is relaying a story of how he and his friend saw a sideshow attraction at a fair. The attraction is put on by a Dr. Caligari, and features a sleepwalker named Cesare whom the doctor can psychically command and also can tell the future for some reason? Anyway, after-hours Dr. Caligari uses Cesare to commit some murders and kidnappings, and when Francis catches on, he chases the doctor to the mental institute where he works, where he is exposed and committed for his crimes. However, we then see through the movie's framing device that actually, Francis is a patient in the mental institute, and Dr. Caligari is his attending physician, and all of the other patients have been the characters in his story. It's kind of a neat little twist (that, depending on who you talk to, may or may not have been in the story originally).

Long story short, this movie was really boring. The ending was good enough that it elevated the rest of the film, but I'm not kidding when I say I watched most of this film at 2x speed and it still felt too slow at times. It's a silent film- I wasn't expecting that when going in- which means most scenes are just watching people stand there, or walk from one side of the screen to the other, and then some oddly-fonted text will pop up for way too long before another long scene of people standing around. The sets were visually striking, and this movie definitely has a lot going for it in the sense that it's interesting to look at, and I can tell they were doing something revolutionary at the time, but even the ending twist is well-tread territory by now and by today's standards there's very little in here that's entertaining. I'd definitely agree this film should be on various "1001 Films to Watch Before You Die" lists, because it's neat to see where the medium started, but I'd be straight-up lying if I said the movie is worth watching outside of a bucket-list scenario. I recently watched a Nicholas Cage movie where he said this was his favorite movie of all time, and that seems really suspect to me. If someone tells you this is their favorite movie (or even in their top ten) I'd just as easily assume they're just trying to sound more cultured than they are.

It wasn't bad, it just wasn't really very fun. If you're going to watch it, do yourself a favor and watch at 2x speed. Or, watch Rob Zombie's music video for Living Dead Girl, which conveys like 75% of the movie's visuals but only takes three minutes to do it.

Overall Rating: 4/10 Decoy Somnambulists

Most Interesting Trivia Tidbit: The final look and feel of the film was based as much on low-budget practicalities as it was on creative inspiration and expressionism. Electricity was strictly rationed in post-WWI Germany at the time the film was being shot, so director Robert Wiene ended up simply painting light beams on backdrops. Shooting on severely confined sets forced him to use unusual camera angles.