Quartile rating: 6/10 · 1 rating
After the death of the paranoid emperor Tiberius, Caligula, his heir, seizes power and plunges the empire into a bloody spiral of madness and depravity.
Caligula is a singular, deeply troubled production — a collision between Gore Vidal's script, Bob Guccione's pornographic inserts, and Tinto Brass's direction that resulted in something genuinely unlike anything else in cinema history. Its Novelty is unquestionable: no major film has combined serious historical ambition, A-list European actors (Malcolm McDowell, Helen Mirren, Peter O'Toole), and unsimulated hardcore sex in quite this catastrophic and fascinating way. Cinematography has moments of genuine visual grandeur amid the chaos — the production design and some compositions are striking. The Plot, however, is incoherent due to the famous editorial warfare between Brass, Guccione, and Vidal (all disowned it), leaving a disjointed narrative. Acting ranges from McDowell's committed unhinged performance to broadly camp work, averaging below par given the compromised material. The Ending is abrupt and unsatisfying, failing to deliver dramatic catharsis despite depicting Caligula's assassination.