Watch The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari For Free

Surprisingly incoherent and boring

Sick Product of a Sick System

Great movie! If you want to be entertained and have a few good laughs, see this movie. The music is also very good,

Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

The hour and ten minutes isn't a long time in relation to the average duration of the movies, but it is way too long in relation to the story this movie tells. One of the slowest things I've ever seen in my life. It's perfectly done for its time, but it's so slow that I started to freak out after ten minutes. I had the impression that it was made as 20 minutes film and then released in slow motion version. That thought gave me an interesting idea, so I made an experiment and increased playback rate. Even without trying it was clear to me that x2 won't be nearly enough, so I jumped directly to x3 and cut the movie down to 23 minutes. The result... the movie was still slow (really unbelievable) but watchable. The only problem is that this way experience is deprived of the atmosphere the music creates. But that's the best solution I've managed to figure out without shutting down the movie halfway through and throwing a complete computer through a closed window. Don't get me wrong, I understand its epoch, I recognize the qualities of this film and its influence, but I was not born a hundred years ago and I have a brain that functions in the 21st century, and which simply can not switch to the time of my great-grandmother and enjoy five minutes worth of story stretched for over an hour of unbearable boredom. I felt like I was stuck in rush hour traffic, driving a new Lamborghini one mile per hour. Terrible experience.4/10

One of the most influential silent era films! It's dreamlike art style and atmosphere has influenced countless other films and directors(Tim Burton might be the most obvious example!). It also pioneers many tropes and elements that have become cliches in horror or mystery type movies. From the "monster" carrying the damsel in distress on rooftops to the prototypical super villain that is the eponymous Dr.! This was ahead of it's time in almost every aspect. And it has aged like a fine wine, getting better with age and showing even more how much it has contributed to the genre and movies as a whole. Definitely one of the "must see" silent era movies!

In 1995, humankind celebrated the 100th anniversary of the birth of motion pictures; the newest medium of art proclaimed its reign of the world of art. Since its beginning, films thoroughly revolutionized the way people watch, think, and get entertained. Now, the time for us to mark a centenary of one of the earliest classics is on the verge. A timeless classic, visual perfection from the silent film period in the Weimar Republic, a century old Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920) still mesmerizes the audience with its sensational visual and historical significance. The stylized sets and grotesque atmosphere of the film are remarkable as ever growing prestige and everlasting impact of the film makes it to an extraordinary level. Extreme distortions, jagged lines, discordant angles make the world of "Caligari" unusually bizarre place to live in. Anyone who watched "Caligari" at night, all alone, will say that "Caligari" is a creepy old movie with an eerie atmosphere and series of vivid imagery. To build a sense of psychological horror, production designer Walter Reimann utilized this unconventionally eccentric sets and disharmonious angles and lights to display the mental state of the protagonist. A critic at Variety claims that "Robert Wiene has made perfect use of settings that squeeze and turn and adjust the eye and through the eye the mentality."The film is recognized as one of the most important works from the post-World War I era. Veering away from conventional cinema and its methods, Expressionist movement in Germany, German Expressionism, sought a different approach to the cinema, exploring and expressing subjectivity through its images, acting, and lighting. A number of film experts believe that "Caligari" was one of the pioneers to both capture extreme imagery and tell subjective perception through rolling films, giving birth to Expressionist Cinema in Germany. In his book, A Critical History of German Film, Stephen Brockmann maintains that "Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, the quintessential example of German Expressionist cinema, was both popular with the public and acclaimed by critics." The significance of "Caligari" lies not only in laying the groundwork of German Expressionist cinema but also in mirroring the society of Germany after the outrageous war. As mentioned above, sets and techniques used by Walter Reimann not only reflect the insanity of a character, but also communicate the tense anxiety in Germany after World War I. Through its theme, set, and story, "Caligari" works as a visual portrayal of German people's feelings toward the aftermath of WWI. In discussions of "Caligari", one controversial issue has been raised about the relationship between the film itself and the rise of Nazi. German film theorist and sociologist Siegfried Kracauer argues that the success and expansion of the film were a reflection of premonition of Hitler's rise. Kracauer's point is that the film, dealing extensively with the themes of control and obedience, has allegories that "expressed German people's fear of chaos and a desire for order, even at the price of authoritarian rule". Taking Kracauer's interpretation into consideration is useful because it sheds insight on the difficulty of envisioning the society during the Weimar era. Most film experts will tell you that you can see the elements of "Caligari" in the works of Tim Burton, Ridley Scott, Edward Lynch and many more. Indeed, "Caligari" was the cinema's first masterpiece.

Probably the best silent film I have ever seen, Caligari has a clear emphasis on German Expressionism while also being a methodically psychological horror film about the supernatural and the surreal imagination of the insane. Silent films started off as filmed plays, and in that vein this film constructed all its sets by hand, painting them in odd patterns, and showing interesting angles and vacant shots of this small village. Besides the interesting set design for the walls and floors, the stairs and windows were strange as well. The slanting light (possibly natural) barely illuminated the creeping corners and morose faces of the townspeople. The town itself is romanticized in the loose culture of the times, being small and simple, without the benefits of electricity or modern technology. Much of this was candlelit which lent to an atmosphere where monsters and creepy crawlies could be behind the next wall just waiting to murder you. Not such a stretch since a string of murders mysteriously starts after the appearance of the gypsy centric fair and a tent advertising a coma creep controlled by a large eye browsed crone named Dr. Caligari. The somnambulist, or coma patient, is a vampiric man who lays within a box and predicts the future based on some unnamed psychic abilities. The look of it and the intricate storyline lends to a very creepy vibe. The characters all express their emotions in a wide and over dramatic way, as this is a German Expressionist film. Everything is bigger, darker, more hurried and vague, and you never quite know who the villain is. Beside that you are always theorizing whether there is any true magic, or it's medicine, or frankly a dream of an insane person. Nothing is ever clear or true, and that leads to feeling unsettled and uneasy over what is on the screen. True, it's silent, and true the characters are at times bland, but it's the storytelling and the fact that it's a horror film that keeps the suspense and the intensity alive. It's a horror film that will have staying power through the decades to come.