Caligula (1981)

Plenty to Like, Plenty to Dislike

An Exercise In Nonsense

It's fun, it's light, [but] it has a hard time when its tries to get heavy.

I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

You could certainly argue that Caligula (1979) is effectively a shallow piece of pornography with a large budget and extensive script, and indeed the dwelling on graphic sex and nudity does cheapen the filmmaking somewhat. However, to my surprise, Caligula turned out to be a compelling and highly entertaining character study set among the ridiculous excess of the early Roman Empire. Malcom McDowell is excellent as Gaius Caligula, he is prone to overacting at points but overall is performance is hypnotic and oddly charming. The rest of the cast are also great, Peter O'Tool for example is excellent as Tiberius. The photography and set design is incredibly impressive and adds a sense of surreal beauty to what could be described as an otherwise ugly film. Indeed the film does not shy away from the grusome cruelty that characterised the emperor's reign, but this works to its advantage, along with the numerous orgies, the inclusion of bloody violence makes this film an unflinching and mostly realistic portrayal of the aristocracy of ancient Rome.The issues here come mainly from a confused script. The writing leaps from mature historical epic to cheap 70s exploitation on a whim and as such the film is tonally confused. The dialogue also varies from adequate to quite compelling to downright terrible. Also the insertion of hardcore sex scenes often distracts from the story and it oftentimes dictates the story, situations are created just so that more nudity can be thrown in. Overall, there is certainly an impressive historical film in here somewhere, perhaps with a stronger script and less of a focus on sex it could have been a masterpieces. Alas, as it stands Caligula remains an oddity, I found in throughly entertaining and it survives a lengthy runtime without ever becoming dull, it has a great cast and looks and sounds fantastic, however it feels like a piece is missing or maybe there are too many pieces already in place.

A couple years ago I got a Roger Ebert review book and discovered his 0 star review of it. In it, he writes: "You have heard that this is a violent film. But who could have suspected how violent, and to what vile purpose, it really is? In this film, there are scenes depicting a man whose urinary tract is closed, and who has gallons of wine poured down his throat. His bursting stomach is punctured with a sword. There is a scene in which a man is emasculated, and his genitals thrown to dogs, who eagerly eat them on the screen. There are scenes of decapitation, evisceration, rape, bestiality, sadomasochism, necrophilia." Yes, these scenes do occur, and they are disgusting.However, there are misnomers here. The emasculation is off screen. The dogs do not EAT the genitals, they just lick the blood off. The "necrophilia" is not sex with a corpse. Caligula's wife dies in his arms and he passionately kisses her in absolute grief. So according to Ebert, kissing your dead spouse goodbye makes you a necrophiliac! And the bestiality, while it's still perverted, Caligula goes to bed with an animal, but no further sexual content occurs.As for the other scenes, yeah, there's not much to say to defend them, They are perverted and exemplify the worst of human nature. But maybe that is the point. I thought a movie like this was praising the emperor, the way people cheer and rile you up for Belfort in The Wolf of Wall Street. But it doesn't seem to. I felt bad when Belfort was arrested. Yet I was satisfied when Caligula got beheaded.Now I should mention that by no means am I defending this despicable content. It is a nasty movie. There are few I could recommend it to.I am also not sure if it IS a 10. But no other rating on any scale seems to fit. I gave it a 10 and put it on my favorites list. But it's not a pure delight. Some scenes made me cringe or fast forward(like a 2 minute lesbian sex scene) but I can't give this another rating.My 10 is not a literal 10. It's more of a "not applicable." Like, I said, there is no rating I could give it. I am left with a film I enjoyed and yet despised. It's one of the best I have ever seen but at the same time it deserves bottom 10 status. If you really want to see this, please do. If you can't bring yourself to do it, that is okay to do.If you read my review of Triumph of the Will, you know I thought it was not good but rather important, Perhaps that, in summary, is why I give it a 10."A haughty spirit comes before a fall" (Proverbs 16:18). This is the story of a sexually perverted ruler's fall. Maybe that is where the majesty lands.

As both a film and a porn film this movie is underrated. It has a great cast of very talented actors, a good script, high production values and well shot porn scenes. Including the lesbian scene between Lori Wagner and Anneka di Lorenzo. The best lesbian scene ever.

I viewed the full-length, uncut version of this film and it struck me as merely an attempt to make a porno version of the Ten Commandments with a bit of Night of the Living Dead thrown in. Guccione's idea seems to have been to portray the perverse and sick side of the Roman era and at the same time, to destroy the Hollywood perception of Biblical movies (given the cast of some well-established actors and actresses). The result was an absolutely disgusting film whose only merit was in its shock value. As many of my fellow IMDb reviewers have pointed out, there is actually a scene early in the film where a group of individuals are buried up to their necks in the ground and are decapitated by a lawn-mower type machine wielding a very large blade. And the scene is very graphic. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think engines existed in this era ! As for the remainder, the script is just plain awful and speaking quite frankly, the "adult" scenes (if we can refer to them that way) are not very stimulating or exciting at all. Also, there are many scenes of orgies, bestiality, incest, and just about any other perversion you can think of. To me, this movie was an expensive attempt to create a pornographic film set to the backdrop of Ancient Rome and throwing in extreme violence and established actors just to lend it some credibility. I'm sure there are many historical errors here as well but in short, this is just an awful attempt at cinema. At a length of a little over 2 and 1/2 hours, it really becomes boring and pointless. Also, if we check the history books, this movie isn't even close to the facts. For one, the emperor's name was not even Caligula. That was a nickname given to him by the Roman soldiers when he was a little boy. It literally means "little boots". He would parade around in front of the soldiers in a soldiers uniform that his mother made for him, which included a tiny set of army boots. And, his reign as emperor only lasted 4 years and was, by far, more violent than sexually perverse. He wound up being assassinated by 2 soldiers whom he insulted. So, this movie technically fails on 2 fronts. Terrible.