Dr. Caligari (1989)

REVIEW
You know you're in for something wild when you find a sequel to The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari made in the '80s by a man whose filmography, with the one exception, consists entirely of artsy hardcore pornography.

Yes, this is a sequel to The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. It is imaginatively titled Dr. Caligari. However, the Caligari of this picture is the granddaughter of the original Caligari. She's a psychiatrist who works for the CIA--in fact, if we're to believe her, she's the greatest psychiatrist in the USA, along with Jung and Wilhelm Reich.

Well, it turns out this Caligari is worse than her grandfather. She performs demented experiments on her patients, using them as guinea pigs for science or maybe for her own enjoyment. In the words of one of the characters you might call a protagonist, "She's no longer a research doctor; she's a flat-out sadist!" Two of her colleagues have had enough and are setting out to stop her.

In the meantime, Les van Houten's having some difficulties with his wife. He wants a good Christian sex life, whereas his wife wants it all the time. We're told she has a "disease of the libido." So he contacts the great psychiatrist Caligari for help. Will his wife be Caligari's next guinea pig?

I always try to give some sense of the weirdness of the films I review after the plot summary. I'm afraid I can't imagine a paragraph that could adequately describe this film. I'm pretty good with words; this film defies me. The best I can think of is to provide you with some stills and some snippets of dialogue.

"I know someone who has to tango, I know someone who has to move, when all the eyeballs scream, 'Stand still.'"

"I see that face and I'm a love-slut, uh-huh!"

"Chinchilla! Chinchilla! Chinchilla!"

"I'm a juice-dog! I'm a twitchin' ski-ball! And you won't let me shiverrrr!"

"I want his boy-thing! To twist it like a rubber-band until it snaps."

"Call me sentimental, but when I see a fresh sheep trotter, I can't help but think, 'There is a god.'"


This film is beyond weird. It is perhaps the single most stylized film since the original Caligari, even exceeding it, with its tongue-in-cheek dialogue and neon colour scheme. It also certainly lays claim to carrying on the Caligarian spirit of radical originality. It even delivers some suspenseful moments, a few moments of horror (one involving implied fisting that should make the men squirm), and a lot of laughs at the sheer bizarreness of it all. It's well-made, well-acted, good, quirky fun.

FACTS
Director - Stephen Sayadian
Writer - Jerry Stahl and Sayadian
Starring - Madeleine Reynal, Laura Albert, Gene Zerna
1989
80 min.

WHERE TO GET IT
I believe it's exclusively at Excalibur Films:
http://www.excaliburfilms.com/adultdvd/91084D1_Dr_Caligari_dvd.htm
This company specializes in distributing porn films. While Dr. Caligari is rated R and contains only a little nudity, Stephen Sayadian is known for his porn.

TIDBITS
Madeleine Reynal's only film.
Sayadian's only non-porn film. His porn films are renowned for their plot and style--apparently he nearly legitimized porn films.
Writer Jerry Stahl played Devon's agent in INLAND EMPIRE. The plot thickens.