Even today, Robert Weine's eerily atmospheric silent era horror, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, continues to set an impressively high standard for the genre, merging ominous music, mood-altering visuals, and an impactful plot twist in this utterly mesmeric, german expressionist masterpiece.
Soon as the curtain opens, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari wastes zero time distorting viewers' perceptions of reality. In the backdrop, behind every silent act exists an obscure sense of scale and dimension, surreptitiously painting a disconcerting scene.
Its optical oddities, squashed spaces, spiraling streets, weirdly warped architecture, and oblique symmetry help twist and tilt familiar furnishings to strange surrealist forms that haunt from the shadows.
Notwithstanding its nausea-inducing color palette, made up of mirky yellows, violent reds, and diluted greens that cast a disorientingly dreamlike daze over proceedings - resulting in a darkly suspenseful story of a deranged hypnotist and his spooky somnambulist.
Though short, the killer, three-pronged combination of curious color scheme, cubist-esque canvas, and sinister musical score present throughout The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari makes for one of the most atmospheric films, not only of the silent era but of the horror genre as a whole.
As one of the earliest pioneers of horror, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari provides essential viewing for fans looking to revisit horror's primordial treasure trove of influences, but it's also worth watching sheerly for it's
unsettling set design and hypnotic tone.
Even today, Robert Weine's immortalized silent flick is guaranteed to deliver a few slow-burning scares. But if that doesn't satisfy your undying thirst for horror, be sure to check out our chilling horror movie review of John Carpenter's The Thing.
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