Customer Reviews

Dr. Caligari [VHS]

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

1989s Cult Comedy "Dr Caligari" Lets us peek into the surrealistic world of psychiatrist, mad woman, Dr. Caligari.
She continues mind bending experiments inspired by that of her grandfather, the original Dr.Caligari.
She treats her patients like lab mice, and deals with swaping patients psychoses with each other. Strange sexual fantasies, Canibalism, and the weird psychopathic musical score really play at bending your'e view of reality. The movie is written like a strange piece of poetry, every line is magic!
This movie is not for the faint of heart and is really for a certain demented kind of individual...Think "Frankenhooker", "Basketcase", "Cafe Flesh", this film joins in that twisted kind of sensibilities!
Utterly briliant!

I first saw this at a party while I was in the Marines. The crowd of jarheads I was with were - receptive - to this kind of flick to say the least. It blew us away. The set designs, the whacked out dialogue, the whole premise is fantastic! Every single moment and nuance of this film is designed to trip you out. Our first go around we didn't even understand what we'd just seen. I've since watched it about 40 more times over the past 15 years. If you like cult films then this nightmare is not to be missed! I can't say enough good things about it but you do have to be able to appreciate the Weird. I consider this movie to be in a class all its own.

My friend said that he looked everywhere for a copy of this, and now I understand why. Its impossible to find, but if you find a copy grab it under any and all circumstances! If you are at all interested in the insane, the psychadelic, the macabre, then this is the movie for you. Body swapping, drugs, giant tongues, electroshock junkies...its totally unique. I cant believe such an incredible film is not being reproduced by loads. It is cerainly subculture du jour.

If you like artistic,witty,cult films then Dr.Caligari is for you. Director Stephen Sayadian has done it again! He has managed to make a unique cult film on a budget that some directors spend on catering. Sayadian's use of color,sets and lighting are all masterful, not to mention his original directorial style. Dr.Caligari is the final installment of the Sayadian cult film genre. From Nightdreams to Cafeflesh to Dr.Caligari,it is time to see Sayadian direct a big budget movie. We all will be delighted,surprised and entertained. *****stars-"I know your watching me"

I have a soft spot in my heart for this movie.

This film is creepily sexy, definitely perverse, and psychedelic in a really-low-budget way. It makes me feel a little seasick, but verrrry happy.

This film is recommended highly for those who like movies such as "Frankenhooker", "Naked Lunch", or "Eraserhead". This is the kind of movie that has convinced my family never to let me make the pick at the video store.

You already know if you will enjoy this kind of D-grade surrealist camp.

I have to say I thought this movie was Great from the first time I saw it. Of course it takes multiple viewings to fully enjoy this kind of Mind-bending, artful,subconcious dreamlike surrealism ride of a feature. The wonderful twists from the original, make it an original Masterpiece in my opinion; if one compares looking back at all the tired movies from the past that have been or are on the market. Unique, Thoughtful, interesting, deep, trippy dialogue is part of what makes this movie so Great, as well as the awesome artistic camera angles combined with disjointed (Calvin klein-like artsy obsession-ad posing BEFORE calvins wanna-be art ads)...the camera & artful satirical humor combined to give the viewer as more than unique experience...so don't listen to kevin'the surreal stinker'from portland, because he obviously doesn't know what great artistic film can be, or wrote his review too hastily

Reading the other reviews on this movie makes me laugh when I see that there are people out there who just didn't get it at all! It is most likely that watching this movie only once will not allow you to fully appreciate all the work that went into making this movie as weird as it is! Believe me, every prop, every bit of dialogue, every camera angle, are all very thought out and are usually referencing something from some other film.

The sets in this movie are patterned after the german expressionist sets in the original silent film "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari." Also, the bright colors chosen for the outfits, all primary yellow, pink, blue, etc., are reminicent of the Dick Tracy remake that Madonna starred in from back in the 80's.

It's amazing to me that some people didn't even realize that the campy overacting was paying tribute to the old horror/sci-fi movies of the 50's and 60's. The people in this movie are actually good seasoned actors, I've seen them in other movies playing normal boring roles.

The dialogue is also nothing short of brilliant! It's just full of puns and word play! Everything has a sexual reference, or does it? There are also some choice lines purposely dating the movie such as when one patient, Gus Pratt, a cannible, just gets a jolt of electro shock therapy. He looks up, sighs and says: "It's like a thousand points of light!" Not that I want to think of another Bush presidency, but it is hilarious!

Simply stated, this movie follows the fall into madness of an ordinary housewife and her journey through psychotherapy, admitting her problem, and then becoming the unwitting plaything of the evil Dr. Caligari.

If you are a fan of movies such as Eraserhead, Forbidden Zone, Naked Lunch, Freaks, Pink Flamingos, The Dark Backward, Slacker, B-Grade Horror flics, then this movie is for you and not one you should miss!!

A cult 'classic' from the infamous writer/director team of Stephen Sayadian and Jerry Stahl (a former writer on the crappy old television show 'Alf'; and played by a young Ben Stiller in the bio-film Permanent Midnight - of which I remember blessedly little, except for a smacked-out-of-his-mind Stiller repeatedly hurling himself at an upper-level window of a skyscraper for kicks) -- the goofballs responsible for the cult porn 'classic', Cafe Flesh.

Here, Dr. Caligari is a sexy psychiatrist in the Rocky Horror/Dr. Dr. Frank-N-Furter mode: a crazy/freak descendant of the original Dr. Caligari who is experimentinting on her patients, using drugs and electrotherapy really mess with their already demented minds.

This turkey was recommended to me by a co-worker who knew I had a soft spot in my heart for wacky cult films, and I watched it late one night (or early one morning) as a double feature with Cafe Flesh, while I was fried out of my mind with a bad case of the flu. Probably not the best headspace to be in, admittedly. Or maybe, on second thought, it was the perfect way to see this.

Unfortunately, other than the set design (the huge lips still stick in my head) - which garishly overwhelms the rest of the movie - there's nothing to be recommended here. And for a low-budget, B movie with no aspirations other than to be as weird as possible, that's saying something.

The 'acting' is college drop-out-level bad, you can bet the script was something Stahl dreamed while trying to throw himself out of a thirty-story building window, and for his first 'mainstream' film (i.e. - not porn), Director Sayadian tries so hard to be goofy that the movie is all but unwatchable. Truthfully, for my money, Cafe Flesh is the better film, porn and all. But for those cult-movie fanatics, be my guest - go ahead and waste an hour and a half of your life with this garbage.

Just don't say you weren't warned. And Aunt Bea has randy-pants right back atcha.

A cult 'classic' from the infamous writer/director team of Stephen Sayadian and Jerry Stahl (a former writer on the crappy old television show 'Alf'; and played by a young Ben Stiller in the bio-film Permanent Midnight - of which I remember blessedly little, except for a smacked-out-of-his-mind Stiller repeatedly hurling himself at an upper-level window of a skyscraper for kicks) -- the goofballs responsible for the cult porn 'classic', Cafe Flesh.

Here, Dr. Caligari is a sexy psychiatrist in the Rocky Horror/Dr. Dr. Frank-N-Furter mode: a crazy/freak descendant of the original Dr. Caligari who is experimentinting on her patients, using drugs and electrotherapy to really mess with their already demented minds.

This turkey was recommended to me by a co-worker who knew I had a soft spot in my heart for wacky cult films, and I watched it late one night (or early one morning) as a double feature with Cafe Flesh, while I was fried out of my mind with a bad case of the flu. Probably not the best headspace to be in, admittedly. Or maybe, on second thought, it was the perfect way to see this.

Unfortunately, other than the set design (the huge lips still stick in my head) - which garishly overwhelms the rest of the movie - there's nothing to be recommended here. And for a low-budget, B movie with no aspirations other than to be as weird as possible, that's saying something.

The 'acting' is college drop-out-level bad, you can bet the script was something Stahl dreamed while trying to throw himself out of a thirty-story building's window, and for his first 'mainstream' film (i.e. - not porn), Director Sayadian tries so hard to be goofy that the movie is all but unwatchable. Truthfully, for my money, Cafe Flesh is the better film, porn and all. But for those cult-movie fanatics, be my guest - go ahead and waste an hour and a half of your life with this garbage.

Just don't say you weren't warned. And Aunt Bea has randy-pants right back atcha.