The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari

Lights in the Dusk

Lynch before Lynch; an obvious influence on films like Lost Highway & Mulholland Drive, where the shame of a crime is deconstructed & put back together again; allowing a character to see it through someone else's eyes. The set-design is rightly celebrated, presenting a world distorted by its narrator's warped psyche, clueing us in to the artificiality of his recollection, but it's also a film full of tremendous pain.

Warren Spratley

So good. I could perhaps do without certain moments in the last 27 minutes or so, and the rhythm from scene space to scene space sometimes feels unskillful, uncertain, part of too many hands' interference perhaps? But these are altogether minor quibbles in relation to the moments when the film is working. A living, breathing thing, this one.

This is Jake Kath

Was surprised the second time around watching it. What I used to think was an extremely convoluted movie turned out to be a complex trip into the mind of a Madmen at the point where movies were just finding their legs. Dark and Naive. Just the way I enjoy my silent cinema!

Zachary George Najarian-Najafi

It reminds me of the things I dream about while I'm asleep at night. This film really gives you that feeling of walking down an abandoned street at night where everything seems to be some kind of imposing threat. Visually, this is one of the most well-composed films I've seen, the art direction and lighting are out of this world. It hasn't aged a bit.

comeandsee

fascinating and really compelling. the set design was very gothic and reminded me of early tim burton as well as charles laughton's night of the hunter. the twists were excellent too. visually a real treat, not to mention that it has a great deal of plot and gets through it with such style. i really was impressed this piece.

Matthew_Lucas

There are few more important or more influential horror films in cinematic history than Robert Wiene's German Expressionist masterpiece, THE CABINET OF DR. CALIGARI. The film that started the Expressionist movement, CALIGARI is a frenzied, stylish nightmare about a mad psychiatrist and his murderous somnambulist, Cesar. From the dynamic, dreamlike design to the oft-copied twist, CALIGARI has never been equaled.

Ethan

This is one of the most interesting masterpieces of German Expressionist Cinema and still has the ability to haunt your dreams even to this day.

Howard Orr

Nothing apart from some of David Lynch's films can horrify with their sheer alien hostility and strangeness like the great silent films.