Paranoid Cinephilia: 31 Day of Halloween: Day 5 - The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920) is widely considered the first horror film. It is also considered the first serial killer film by some although Bluebeard (1901) predates it by 19 years.

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari really is the first horror film, though, because it is the first to use unsettling mise en scène and lighting to establish an unsettling feeling in the viewer. It also established many of the tropes we now know as anathema to the serial killer sub-genre. There are no parallel lines to disillusion the viewer.

My wife asked me if I thought people were scared watching this when it came our in 1920. I said that I definitely do think people were sacred. They had never seen anything like this. It's the same way people were scared when the Beatles' Revolver came out and Tomorrow Never Knows changed what they thought music could sound like.

The Somnambulist is a sleep walker and he is Dr. Caligari's victim. Dr. Caligari forces him to kill.

Watching people from 1920 moving around is really a form of necromancy. We use some kind of technology to resurrect these people who have long since been dead. It is odd that we are watching ghosts. Even when we watch recent cinema, those people do not exist anymore, not in that form at least. They will forever be frozen in that period of time. When you watch a film that you've seen before, it always remains the same, even if you haven't. I guess it's a form of time travel too.

Watch the whole thing here with an updated soundtrack.