Dr. Caligari is experimenting with her patients at the Caligari Insane Asylum (or the C.I.A. for short). Among her many crazy patients, there’s Mr Pratt who is a cannibalistic serial killer, and then Mrs. Van Houten who is a nymphomaniac housewife. The doctor’s treatment? Mindswapping, of course! All done by transferring glandular brain fluids from one patient to the other. Nothing could go wrong here, nope, nothing at all. Of course, Dr. Caligari (who is, naturally, described as the descendant of the original Dr. Caligari from The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari) has her enemies like all geniuses do, and the married couple Mr. and Mrs. Lodger wants her experiments to stop and turn to their father for help. Problem is, that their father has a very high opinion of the doctor, and refuses to do anything to stop her. At least not at first. And when he becomes another victim to her mindswapping techniques which turns him onto a nymphomaniac transvestite, there’s not many people left to stop her. Except…maybe the patients themselves…
Dr. Caligari is a really, really bizarre thing to watch. It’s an avant-garde horror film with a lot of erotic scenes, released in 1989 and directed by Stephen Sayadian. As you can expect from the title, it’s some kind of pseudo-sequel to the famous film The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari from 1920. It was originally billed as Dr. Caligari 3000 for a short time when it debuted in select theaters, but after being released on VHS and Betamax, the title was shortened down. While it’s mostly a very obscure movie, it’s gotten a cult classic status. Despite the movie quickly falling into obscurity after its release, which shouldn’t be a surprise since this is so far from mainstream as you can get, Stephen Sayadian continued to direct X-rated movies up until 1993. As should probably be expected, several of the actors here also didn’t star in many other films after the 90s, including the lead actress Madeleine Reynal who only played in one movie prior to this one.
Now, how to properly explain this movie…well, what should be obvious is that the film is very much all about sex and deviance, but it never gets too graphic to be considered more than an R-rating. There’s some tits and nudity here and there, but nothing outright explicit. But one thing is for sure: everything here, and I mean absolutely everything, is totally fucknuts bonkers bizarre, with characters, scenery and dialogue that’s completely over the top in absurdity most of the time. Pretty much everything that’s said here is delivered in what I assume must be practiced monotony, especially the lines delivered by the titular character herself, and you’ll easily lose count of how many times the fourth wall is broken. Whenever a character opens their mouth to talk, it’s all a bunch of strained and artificial lines with very weird facial expressions to follow, often looking straight at the viewer. Mostly this was done on purpose, I guess, which adds to the very odd vibe throughout and gives a theater-play feeling to it. I have to give props when it comes to the special effects and scenery, the surrealistic insanity displayed here is something that must be seen to be believed. After all, a woman getting licked by a gigantic tongue sticking out from a wall of flesh isn’t something you see every day.
Dr. Caligari feels like some kind of wet fever dream Tim Burton could’ve had if he was locked up in a madhouse together with John Waters. If you want something truly bizarre that’s filled to the brim with naughty absurdities, then this one’s for you!
The movie was released on DVD, Blu-ray and 4K Ultra HD by Mondo Macabro. It is also available on Shudder.
Director: Stephen Sayadian
Writers: Stephen Sayadian, Jerry Stahl
Country & year: USA, 1989
Actors: Madeleine Reynal, Fox Harris, Laura Albert, Jennifer Balgobin, John Durbin, Gene Zerna, David Parry, Barry Phillips, Magie Song, Jennifer Miro, Stephen Quadros, Carol Albright
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0097228/
