A young man, Francis (Friedrich Feher), recounts the story of Dr. Caligari, proprietor of a unique fairground sideshow: Cesare, the somnambulist. When the fair arrives in the town of Holstenwall, it marks the beginning of a series of brutal murders. Is the mysterious Caligari responsible, waking his sleeping attraction and sending him into the night to kill?
At the risk of sounding like a philistine, I think that Robert Wiene's silent horror classic The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari drags a tad too much. There's no denying the occasional brilliance of its expressionist set design and the ingenuity of the surprise revelation at the end (almost 70 years before Shyalaman made twist endings his thing), but I believe that the story would have been better suited to a shorter runtime. Wiene has a tendency to linger on scenes, and while this admittedly gives the viewer more opportunity to drink in his bizarre, angular visuals, it also allows boredom to set in.
If you're a dedicated horror nut, I'd say that watching the film is a no-brainer, worth a go if only to witness iconic imagery such as Cesare (Conrad Veidt) carrying woman-in-peril Jane Olsen (Lil Dagover) over the town's zig-zagging rooftops. Just expect to be a little underwhelmed and a tad stupefied by the film as a whole.
At the risk of sounding like a philistine, I think that Robert Wiene's silent horror classic The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari drags a tad too much. There's no denying the occasional brilliance of its expressionist set design and the ingenuity of the surprise revelation at the end (almost 70 years before Shyalaman made twist endings his thing), but I believe that the story would have been better suited to a shorter runtime. Wiene has a tendency to linger on scenes, and while this admittedly gives the viewer more opportunity to drink in his bizarre, angular visuals, it also allows boredom to set in.
If you're a dedicated horror nut, I'd say that watching the film is a no-brainer, worth a go if only to witness iconic imagery such as Cesare (Conrad Veidt) carrying woman-in-peril Jane Olsen (Lil Dagover) over the town's zig-zagging rooftops. Just expect to be a little underwhelmed and a tad stupefied by the film as a whole.