![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/Caligula-PIC.jpg?resize=620%2C348&ssl=1\")
<\/p>\r\n<\/p>\r\n
Caligula <\/strong>(1979)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Penthouse Films-Analysis Film Releasing\/Drama\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 156 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 No MPAA Rating (an abundance of graphic bloody violence, full frontal nudity, explicit hardcore sex and human degradation; it\u2019s the equivalent of an X)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Directors: Tinto Brass, Giancarlo Lui and Bob Guccione (additional scenes)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Gore Vidal\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Paul Clemente\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Silvano Ippoliti\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: February 1, 1980 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Starring: Malcolm McDowell, Helen Mirren, Peter O’Toole, John Gielgud, Teresa Ann Savoy, Guido Mannari, Giancarlo Badessi, John Steiner, Bruno Brive, Adriana Asti, Leopoldo Trieste, Paolo Bonacelli.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Box Office: $23.4M (US)<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n Rating:<\/strong>\u00a0NO STARS!!!<\/strong><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n \u00a0Film is a subjective medium. Everybody has their own opinion regarding the best and worst movies. So do I. In regards to the worst, it would be too easy for me to name some cheap schlocky movie like Plan 9 from Outer Space or Robot Monster or a notorious stinker like Heaven\u2019s Gate or Battlefield Earth. They\u2019re bad alright but nowhere near as horrible as Caligula<\/strong>. It\u2019s hands down the most vile, nauseating, unpleasant piece of crap I\u2019ve ever had the misfortune of watching. It not only explores the lowest depths of human degradation, it manages to sink lower by passing itself off as legitimate cinema. It\u2019s not fit to be shown in theaters. It\u2019s not even fit to be shown in the filthiest, foulest outhouse in the world. It is the most disgusting, degrading and depressing 156 minutes you\u2019ll ever experience.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n \u00a0Ostensibly, Caligula<\/strong> is a biopic of the notorious Roman emperor whose short rule (37-41 AD) is marked by madness and perversion. Malcolm McDowell (A Clockwork Orange) plays the disturbed ruler, a man who never came across a sexual deviance he didn\u2019t like. We first see him frolicking with a young woman with whom he\u2019s sexually involved. She\u2019s revealed to be his younger sister Drusilla (Savoy). It\u2019s all downhill from here.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n \u00a0He\u2019s summoned to the Island of Capri where his great uncle Emperor Tiberius (O’Toole, My Favorite Year) lives in seclusion with his close friend Nerva (Gielgud, Arthur). Caligula discovers that Tiberius has gone completely insane due to syphilis and other venereal diseases. Tiberius lets his great-nephew know that his younger stepbrother Gemellus (Brive) will inherit the throne once he dies. He then tries to poison Caligula with a goblet of wine. After Nerva commits suicide, Tiberius has a stroke. Caligula steals the imperial signet ring right from the ruler’s finger then orders the head guard to murder him. He ascends to the throne and takes Caesonia (Mirren, The Long Good Friday) as his wife for the sole purpose of bearing him a son, an heir to the throne.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n \u00a0During his short rule, Caligula has many people executed for anything he perceives as “treason”. In fact, Caligula does a lot of terrible things. He becomes increasingly paranoid and delusional, even leading an attack on \u201cBritain\u201d (a nearby island) at one point. \u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n \u00a0Caligula<\/strong> began life as a legitimate historical biopic but the production team was unable to get adequate financing. That’s when Bob Guccione, the founder and publisher of Penthouse magazine, stepped in and saved the day. In doing so, he changed the direction of the movie. He insisted that the modestly-budgeted movie become a large-scale epic along the lines of Ben-Hur. He also directed many scenes of hardcore pornography and inserted them against the objections of director Tinto Brass (Salon Kitty) who ultimately had his name removed from the credits. By the end, it was completely different from Gore Vidal\u2019s original screenplay.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n Without the explicit sex scenes, Caligula<\/strong> would have merely been boring. With the material, it\u2019s boring and perverted. It covers any and all sexual practices including incest, rape, bestiality, necrophilia, fisting, pedophilia and many others. There are scenes of urination, ejaculation, masturbation, fellatio, cunnilingus and graphic sex both gay and straight. And we mustn\u2019t forget the violence. Ordinarily, I\u2019m into violence but not in this case. All of it is sickening. The lowlights include a drunken soldier having his urinary tract tied off and gallons of wine poured down his throat before being disemboweled and men being executed in the Colosseum by being buried up to their necks and decapitated by some machine. There are scenes depicting castration, infanticide, fratricide and rape. The makers hold nothing back; everything is right there in full view. Caligula<\/strong> makes Salo, 120 Days of Sodom look like a Disney movie. I don’t consider myself a prude at all, but this movie really does go too far. What makes it even worse is the dark, joyless tone. Orgies are supposed to be fun and festive but you wouldn\u2019t know it from this movie. They\u2019re as ugly and depressing as the rest of the whole miserable affair that is Caligula<\/strong>.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n \u00a0You’ll notice that several acclaimed actors are involved with Caligula<\/strong>. What, you ask, are McDowell, O\u2019Toole and Gielgud doing here? It’s my theory they didn’t know what the final product was going to be while they were shooting this abomination. At least, Gielgud and O’Toole retain their dignity with quick exits. Poor McDowell gets the short end of the stick; he\u2019s stuck in it until the very end. It’s my understanding that McDowell will not discuss Caligula<\/strong> in interviews. I can’t say that I blame him for wanting to distance himself from it. Even so, he overacts shamelessly as a madman and megalomaniac.\u00a0 Mirren, in one of her early roles, makes a valiant effort to get through it with some measure of dignity. That\u2019s actually the best way to describe the performances. They\u2019re not acting; they\u2019re trying to get through it with their dignity and reputations intact.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n \u00a0I can think of many words to describe Caligula<\/strong> without consulting a thesaurus. They are abysmal, putrid, dull, revolting, abhorrent, distasteful, appalling, depraved, ugly, offensive, execrable, debased, humiliating and detestable. The list is endless really. What’s most disturbing about Caligula<\/strong> is that it made money with a domestic gross of $23.4 million. I\u2019m wondering how much of the audience was comprised of dirty old men in raincoats? Caligula<\/strong> is the kind of movie for which you plunk down the exact admission price to avoid lingering at the ticket booth lest you be seen and recognized. NOBODY admits to seeing a movie like this.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n \u00a0Over the years, Caligula<\/strong> has attained cult status. I don’t get it. It\u2019s monumentally bad on every single level. The melodramatic score by Paul Clemente is horribly overdone. Visually, it\u2019s unsightly. It\u2019s seriously underlit. A gloomy pallor hangs over the whole movie. The characters are repulsive and odious. Caligula\u2019s successor Claudius (Badessi) is depicted as a retarded idiot easy to control. I could go on and on listing all of the movie\u2019s bad qualities. Instead, I\u2019ll be brief and say the whole thing is BAD! It stinks to high heaven and the deepest bowels of hell.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n \u00a0I’m not sure than any review can capture how bad Caligula<\/strong> really is. I hate to say it, and please don\u2019t take this as any sort of endorsement, but you might just need to see it for yourself. PLEASE don’t take this as a recommendation because it most assuredly is NOT. On the contrary, I urge all of you to avoid Caligula<\/strong> like the plague. These, of course, are empty words as I\u2019m sure some of you still want to watch it anyway. In life, some things have to be seen to be believed. Believe me when I say we\u2019re talking about one giant steaming pile of horse manure here. Its cult status gives me cause to worry about the future of humankind. Have we really sunk low enough to consider Caligula<\/strong> entertainment? It\u2019s as entertaining as a funeral. It goes way, WAY beyond the limits of bad taste. If you insist on watching it, it\u2019s advisable to keep a barf bag nearby. You\u2019ll need it. It leaves you feeling like you’re going to need several hot showers afterwards to wash off the filth and stench. The blame for this abomination doesn\u2019t fall entirely on Guccione or Brass; there\u2019s enough of it to share with everybody involved in its making.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n \u00a0I remember Roger Ebert’s review of Caligula<\/strong>. As he stood in the theater lobby afterwards, he heard a woman make a comment that perfectly describes this crime against cinema, \u201cThis is the worst piece of s— I have ever seen.\u201d Very succinctly put, unknown lady. Caligula<\/strong> is the greatest example of cinematic excrement in existence. Case closed.<\/p>\r\n Caligula (1979)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Penthouse Films-Analysis Film Releasing\/Drama\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 156 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 No MPAA Rating (an abundance of graphic bloody violence, full frontal nudity, explicit hardcore sex and human degradation; it\u2019s the equivalent of an X)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Directors: Tinto Brass, Giancarlo Lui and Bob Guccione (additional scenes)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Gore Vidal\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Paul Clemente\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Silvano Ippoliti\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: February […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":700,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-112","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-this-sucks-so-bad"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/Caligula-PIC.jpg?fit=620%2C348&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=112"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4337,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112\/revisions\/4337"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/700"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=112"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=112"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=112"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/Caligula-POSTER.jpg?resize=620%2C930&ssl=1\")
<\/p>\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"