Cinema Extreme #1 - Caligula (1979)

Director: Tinto Brass, Giancarlo Lui Stars: Malcolm MacDowell, John Gielgud, Peter O'Toole

Review:

There are movies that are extremely gore and full of violence scenes, like Braindead (1992). But there are movies that are so offensive, that it ceases being entertaining and become an endurance to sit through the end. The only achievement is not enjoyment but able to say "I have watched that film".

Caligula (1979) depicts the exaggerated sexual and cruel side of the Ancient Roman Empire. This notorious movie stars some really big names: Alex from A Clockwork Orange (1971), Father Karras from The Exorcist (1973), and Lawrence from Lawrence of Arabia (1962), and tells the story of Caligula, who was the fourth emperor of the Roman Empire. He killed his father in his deathbed to success him, and killed his right-hand man to clear any threats for his power, and started his tyranny rule. A story that has happened more than a thousand times throughout history.

Is he really pissing or there is a hose...? After all those penises cumming I'm not surprised in any case.

What is special about this movie is its portrayal of the exaggerated Ancient Roman Empire. Almost everyone except the royal family is naked. Penises and clitorises can be seen everywhere. Any man can have sex with any women, and any woman can have sex with any woman in this movie. There is a scene that Caligula ordered all member of the senate to prositute their wifes for everyone who can pay 5 gold pieces, and committed incest with his sister. Although there is not man-to-man sex, there is a fisting scene in which Caligula shove his hand up a guy's ass.

The guy is getting fisted up his ass. The one lying in the left in his new married, and just raped wife, by Caligula.

This movie is also cruel in torture. We see a guy got his penis tied by his shoelaces, though I aint sure that shoelaces exists in Roman times, and was shoved tonnes of wine into his mouth. After it's done, the emperor stick a sword through his stomach to let the wine flood over. There is also torture in humiliation which is so cruel that it almost anti-humanity. There is a scene that a naked woman was tied up with her legs wide open on a open stage, who is giving birth for all the audience to see. And the naked woman is the wife of Caligula, the supposed queen, but Caligula put her on stage as a show.

But the scene that I found most amazing in the head chopping machine. After I got aroused by a sex scene it cuts to a head being cut off. The huge contrast stunned me and here comes the head chopping machine. Victims were buried in the ground leaving only their heads on the floor. The machine is like a huge wall with mowers at the bottom, without the safety shield. As the wall moves forwards, it cuts off the head. People throws fruits and vegetables to the heads to humiliate them. The visual is so stunning that the wall have a freezen screaming face scripture stuck out, and people dying underneath surrounded by aroused mob.  It shows how human lifes were insignificant by showing people gone through such big way to build such a machine to just kill for entertainment. The only word I can sum up this whole scene is "anti-humanity".

The artistic style is so Roman, and the face scripture is as if they were crying.

Over 80% of screentime in this movie is sex, which makes it to be straightly a porn. Does it have any underlying meanings, besides the trivial man is bad, Caligula is insane message? I do not think so. Many film critics have bashed this film as trash, but I think they just could not get over with the overwhelming sex and heartless torture. However to the other side of the pole, I fail to see anyone who could consider this as their favourite film, other than being different from others. As most films in the cinema extreme, the only gain from the experience is the shock, disturbance, memories of the crazy images, and the claim, "I have seen Caligula".

Theatre of the Dead #3 - Zombi 2 (1979)

Director: Lucio Fulci
Stars: Tisa Farrow, Ian McCulloch


Review:


The first natural reaction off seeing the title would be: where is Zombi 1? Upon release in Italy, the title of Dawn of the Dead was changed into Zombi, and in order to capture the success of Dawn of the Dead they decided to call this movie Zombi 2. In the States there is no Zombi 1 so the poster uses the title Zombie. Despite the confusing title, this movie have nothing to do with Dawn of the Dead.

I find this looks amazing visually. With fires it looks like gate of hell.

Zombi 2 takes a more traditional horror movie approach to the zombie scenario. In Night of the Living Dead zombie just appears right at the beginning of the movie with no explaination. In Dawn of the Dead, the zombie already taken over right at the start. Zombi 2 gives the backstory on how the zombie raises.

The movie starts with a discovery of an abandoned ship in New York. Two policeman go abroad to investigate, but one of them got killed. The police force believes that it has something to do with the shipowner, but the shipowner's daugter and a reporter does not share the same thought with the police. They find a death letter from the shipowner on the ship, that he was held on an island. They decided to went on that island, and find out the dead is coming alive.

She would turn around but I dont want to make this an adult site.

We seem to have heard the story many times before (the basic plot is a bit similar to Tombs of the Blind Dead 1971, in which in both movie the characters went to some far places and the dead come to kill them), and it contains all bad horror movie omens, such as a love subplot and un-necessary nudity. In the first half of the movie it does get a bit boring while the characters try to create suspense when we all have already know the answer. But later when the zombie attack is in full motion,the shock value even exceeds Dawn of the Dead. The zombie makeup looks way better and designed that they decays, and their flesh can easily be scratched off since they are dead. They rises from the grave with all the worms and insects, and looked way more nasty.

Compare these with the Dawn of the Dead zombies and you know what I mean.

Another thing this movie brings to the zombie formular is it gives more attention to the cause. In Night of the Living Dead we were told briefly that the zombie coming back to life is because of an outer space radiation bought by a spaceship back from venus. Nowadays we know that radiation does not work that way, but back in 1968 people was fed by tonnes of sci-fi movie of the 50s about ridiculous consequences of exposure to radiation. People in 1950s were afraid so much of radiation since they witnessed the nuclear bomb explosion first hand.

A zombie fighting a shark. The shark is real by the way.

Coming back to this movie, it goes back to the root of zombie legend, that the cause of zombie is voodoo, like in the movie White Zombie (1932), though we were not definitely told. The native on the island said it is voodoo, but the doctor that is researching the zombie phenonmenon on the island, speaking representing our logic, does not believe. However he tried pathology, virology, radiology, etc and nothing gives an explaination. So at the end we were not sure if it is really the cause, but it thrills you more with the mystery than just telling you it is a virus.

Ever played Resident Evil 4/5?

Zombi 2 is worth watching for its shock value, and it defines what a zombie looks like today. It spawns its own line of sequels, though seemingly not related to each other, and none of the sequels is worth mentioning. The director Lucio Fulci went on to make some other zombie movies that is unrelated to Zombi 2, like City of the Living Dead (1980). Nowadays George A. Romero is commonly hailed as the person who created zombies, but I consider Lucio Fulci's name in the Hall of Fame of the zombie genre with Romero and another director that I have yet to introduce.