THE CABINET OF DR. CALIGARI
Figured I'd end the month with a classic of early cinema. And, surprisingly enough, I'd never seen it before.
While I would hesitate to call it a true horror film, it does contain a lot of the core elements of the genre.
But it's essentially a macabre looking murder mystery with a few twists and turns that have become de rigueur in modern cinema.
A feat of German Expressionism, it's the look of the film, much more than the story, that creates a sense of abstract horror: buildings are slanted, authority figures are either lanky or stout and shrunken and sit on insanely high chairs in crowded offices, and everybody wears scary make-up (yes, I know this is the style of the time and a holdover from stage productions that used elaborate and heavily caked make-up so that the folks in the back rows could see the facial expressions, but it's still unnerving and weird looking by today's standards). Suffice it to say, one would be hard pressed not to notice the obvious influence this film had on folks like Tim Burton and Joe Dante, amongst others.
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