Joe D’amato’s 1982 Caligula: The Untold Story makes no secret of its obvious inspiration.
Revisiting Caligula: The Untold Story of 1982!
Caligula: The untold story is an unusual film. Although it’s filled with violence, nudity, and virtually every kind of perverse torture imaginable, it still feels like a watered down movie. Of course, that’s because it’s in keeping with 1979. Caligulaone of the most infamous exploitation films of all time.
Compared to virtually any movie in addition Tinto Brass’s degenerate 1979 arthouse classic, Caligula: the untold story would be downright extreme. But when you’re emulating a gory historical epic that literally contained unsimulated sex scenes, it’s pretty hard to find source inspiration.
This does not mean Caligula: the untold story but it’s a bad movie. In fact, it is certainly a guilty pleasure film with better-than-expected acting, downright brilliant cinematography and even a few scenes bordering on the ironic glow. It’s nowhere near as memorable, impressive or worrying like in 1979 Caligula, but if you watch the movie in the right mood, you might enjoy it immensely.
The film comes to us from Joe D’amato. He’s the kind of director who doesn’t need much introduction for fans of long-term exploitation horror. Absurd, Ator the fighting eagle, Antropophagus… his filmography is indeed deep, with a career spanning from the 1950s until the year of his death in 1999. Granted, D’amato’s name does not appear. anywhere In Caligula: the untold story. That’s because he was using a pseudonym, which was a fairly common practice for Italian genre directors who were obviously trying to woo potential American distributors at the time. But hey, we know who “David Hills” is this is really the case, isn’t it?
Lead actor David Brandon definitely had his work cut out for him. Following Malcolm McDowell’s performance in Caligula was a daunting task and Brandon acquits himself quite well in a performance that doesn’t feel like a shameless imitation (even though the film, as a whole, is a shameless scam.) He actually gives a more restrained performance than McDowell, and in some ways it’s a more varied and effective portrayal of the Mad Emperor. Granted, it’s not like Brandon is Sir Laurence Olivier or anything like that, but for material, he makes a decent enough work to carry it.
You don’t have to wait long for the T&A to reach fans. We already have one horrible sexual assault scene around the 12 minute mark of the film – and keep in mind that this isn’t really the last of the image. So yeah, if it’s an automatic “no” for some viewers, I really can’t blame them.
But if you stay with Caligula: the untold storyyou will discover a surprisingly competent biopic film. The pacing and structure of the film are quite good and D’Amato’s cinematic work is sometimes excellent. Additionally, Carlo Maria Cordio’s music is also pretty good, although the atmosphere doesn’t always match what’s happening on screen.
The film opens with a would-be assassin being apprehended and having…nasty…things done to him as punishment. From there, we get a sequence where Caligula and his friends find Christians in the woods and… well, I’m not going to say precisely what happens to them, but rest assured, it’s not good. Then Caligula returns to the Senate and claims that the Christians themselves committed all the chaos and that the senators don’t buy it and continue to plot to overthrow him. Then we have a long segment where Caligula has nightmares about shapeless naked women, and then he pretends to die of poisoning at a big banquet and stabs a dude just because he can.
Then this movie starts getting crazy with a capital “c”. You’re kind of expecting a film about Caligula have a few orgies and the amount of depraved things that happen in this movie is impressive to say the least. Like, you have people juggling while I engaged in carnal acts, which I don’t think I’ve ever seen before. And the less we say about the horsethe better it is for everyone involved.
My favorite scene in the movie is when two guys decide to fight to the death amidst all the sexual excesses. It’s an expertly crafted scene with a careful juxtaposition of sex and violence and the editing here is simply fantastic.
I don’t think anyone will be surprised by the film’s lead actress, Laura Gemser. The name may not be familiar to you, but if you had The Movie Channel in the late ’80s or early ’90s, you’d instantly recognize her as the titular star of Emanuelle in Bangkok, Emanuelle in America, Black Emanuelle and like half a dozen other films with the word Emmanuelle in the title. Her performance is staid – to put it mildly – but she’s quite effective in the thankless role of Miriam, the conflicted love interest who can’t decide whether or not she wants to assassinate Caligula in his sleep.
I feel like it’s a bit pointless to ruin everything chart scenes from the film. For one thing, advertisers don’t like it when I do it and if you go into the movie with merely prurient interests, it kind of ruins the fun for you. But yes, it’s an extreme film which probably obtain an NC-17 rating Todayeven less in the early 1980s. Viewer’s discretion, strongly recommended.
The last 20 minutes of Caligula: the untold story almost blossoming into full-blown supernatural horror territory. Hell, there’s a scene that almost looks like something you’d see in one of Romero’s zombie movies: it’s over there stuff, but surprisingly it still manages to work within the larger context of the film. If you’re a C-plus or above history major, you already know how the story is going to end, but I will commend D’amato for giving us a rather unorthodox (and quite satisfying) conclusion that doesn’t I feel like I’m a carbon copy of by Caligula grand finale.
There’s definitely an element of humor in the film, although it probably wasn’t intentional. For example, there’s a part where Caligula’s yes-men keep shouting “vomit, Caesar, vomit!” over and over again and Caligula’s pep talk to a eunuch – where he drops the immortal line “he’s not much, but he’s still a man” – is oddly hilarious. And because everyone’s dialogue is dubbed, you get a nice kung fu morning-in-the-afternoon vibe – it’s crude and depraved, but it’s not without its moments of levity and awkwardness.
Caligula: the untold story is obviously not up to the task of Caligula. But it’s unique enough to carve out its own identity and if you have a knack for extraordinarily problematic horror films where everyone has really big eyebrows, you’ll be in pig heaven here. It’s not a movie for everyone, but if you’re upper class bad tasteyou will probably enjoy this film in spite of yourself.
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