The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (DVD)

Despite the sophisticated feel of 1920's (or 1919 or 1920 depending on what you read) "Das Cabinet des Dr Caligari" runs along a very simple storyline. An insane doctor from a travelling fair commands a sleepwalking slave to murder unwitting residents of a village at night pretty much sums up the plot without giving anything away. As the film unfolds towards the end we discover all is not what it seems. It's a genuinely eerie piece of work from the misshapen scenery to the creepy Caligari and his murderous slave, Cesare. The Cabinet of Dr Caligari (English translation) was not the first horror movie made. Nevertheless, it is the first significant one ...  Read the complete review

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari remains one of the most influential films in the history of cinema, and is one of the primary proponents of the German Expressionist movement, along with F.W. Murnau's own Nosferatu, and Fritz Lang's M. Films of this sort are characterised by their chaioscuro lighting (where the lighting is very mottled - it has both very high incidence of shadow and also heavy lighting to emphasise certain areas, there are pools of light and dark), and also their angular set design, something that Caligari in particular influenced. The film's influence can be seen in works as far and diverse as the films of Tim Burton - his two Batman films in ...  Read the complete review

There is something inherently eerie, otherworldly, about silent pictures. Whatever the merit of the film itself, the faint flickering of the frames (however good the restoration), the grain, the occasionally over-theatrical performances (I'm generalising horribly here, I know. There is nothing theatrical about many of the performances in, for example, Benjamin Christensen's masterpiece Haxan), even the nature of the musical soundtrack, disembodied and carrying on with little synchronisation with movements, actions onscreen... Eerie, yes. And how much more so when these elements are wrapped around a picture already reeking of the uncanny? A picture, ...  Read the complete review