This Weekend, ‘Caligula: The Ultimate Cut’ Makes Its Way Into North American Theaters
Courtesy of Drafthouse Films
Even among the most noteworthy cult classics, 1980’s Caligula flaunts an unparalleled infamy. Plagued by an insatiable producer who propelled Caligula’s writer and director to be cut from the final credits, the movie was released theatrically to horrendous reviews, with Roger Ebert famously describing it as “sickening, utterly worthless, shameful trash.” This weekend, over four decades since its original release, a revised version of the controversial classic, Caligula: The Ultimate Cut, will make its way into theaters across North America, with distribution handled by Drafthouse Films.
In the late 1970s, Penthouse magazine founder Bob Guccione—who also dabbled as a film producer—concocted an adaptation of Roman Emperor Caligula’s dramatic rise and fall from power with the idea of creating history’s most costly and ambitious independent film, a boundary-pushing combination of art and sexuality. Guccione formed an impressive team of collaborators to work on the project: the famed Gore Vidal to construct the script, Italian filmmaker Tinto Brass to direct, and some of England’s most celebrated stage actors to star in the central roles, including Helen Mirren, Peter O’Toole, and the great Malcolm McDowell as Caligula himself.
Clashing personalities and an inflated budget bogged down the film’s shoot. However, the true pandemonium happened during the editing process when Guccione turned his back on Caligula’s chief creatives and assembled his own concept, with the addition of gratuitous pornographic scenes that were shot in secrecy under the producer’s supervision. At this point, both Brass and Vidal walked away from Caligula, with their credits redacted by Guccione. Upon its release, Caligula’s perverse reputation and behind-the-scenes drama had theater-goers lining up around the block to experience the travesty, and the movie earned a commendable revenue at the box office.
Courtesy of Drafthouse Films
Fast-forward to the 2023 Cannes Film Festival, where Caligula: The Ultimate Cut was introduced to the world. Art historian Thomas Negovan was tasked with piecing together the film’s original negatives to rebuild the movie with Brass and Vidal’s original vision in mind. Negovan excavated the Penthouse archives, only using never-before-seen footage that went unused in the original.
Caligula: The Ultimate Cut operates with much more narrative integrity than its predecessor, capturing the Roman emperor’s descent from virtue into corrupt hedonism. While Guccione’s version was overshadowed by scandal, Negovan’s reimagined arrangement allows for McDowell and his costars’ committed performances to radiate, along with the film’s ambitious set and production design. Make no mistakes, however, Caligula: The Ultimate Cut is nearly as insane as its prototype: chock full of incest, graphic nudity, and suggestive violence that takes inspiration from the real life of Caligula and amplifies it tenfold.
Ultimately, Caligula: The Ultimate Cut serves as a brilliant homage to one of cinema’s most scandalous cult classics. Working within the sensibilities of the boundary-pushing cinema of the 1970s, it creates a vision of immoral authority and sexual transgression that can speak powerfully to audiences familiar with the original film and those who may be introduced to it for the first time through this carefully restored and reworked new interpretation.
Caligula: The Ultimate Cut, distributed by Drafthouse Films, will begin its North American theatrical release on Friday, August 16. Click here to find a showtime near you and watch the trailer below.