The First Psychological Horror Movie Ever Made

Can you believe that the first psychological horror thriller movie ever made was released 100 years ago? I certainly can’t get over it. Watching some of the most amazing psychological horrors like Psycho (1960), The Silence Of The Lambs (1991) or the recent Get Out (2017), one wonders about the inception of the genre.

Well, I did wonder about it. Its inception was through a 1920 German Film titled The Cabinet Of Dr. Caligari. And even after 100 years, This film remains equally terrifying, thought-provoking, and undeniably interesting. But what makes it so significant? Let’s find out!

The Cabinet Of Dr. Caligari

Dr. Caligari is a mysterious person who has a show in a fair about somnambulism. Caligari claims to his audience that the somnambulist will tell them their future. Well, when we hear claims like this what is the first question we have?
“How long will I live?’’ asks Alan to the somnambulist, the friend of our hero and narrator – Francis.
Somnambulist answers, “Till the next dawn.” and Alan is found murdered next dawn. Alan’s death provokes Francis to get to the bottom of this matter. He openly claims that Dr. Caligari is responsible for the murders happening every night.
What happens next? Who is the murderer? Does Caligari get caught or is all of it a ruse? I suppose I shall keep the spoilers mild in this article.

While all of the plotlines sound interesting, the key factor is that this film is silent and you will have to read dialogue cards in German to fill the blanks. (There are English subtitles available.) The question people might ask is why should you go through so much trouble when they can rewatch The Office on Netflix.
Well, I will try to give you a few simple reasons.

One of the significant reasons to watch this film is what this film represents. The Cabinet Of Dr. Caligari has one of the weirdest set design. The doors, the pathways, the windows all are shaped in weird shapes. This weirdness represents distortion. This film’s color palette is not exactly black and white as it uses Yellow, Blue color schemes to showcase the absurdity of the world. This film’s representation of somnambulism is analysed as representation of Nazism. A lot of people claimed that this film represented Post-World-War I Germany’s need for authority. Dr. Caligari’s madness is connected with Hitler and the somnambulists are considered as sleeping people of the country. While lot of Film Analysts believe this theory the creators deny it. I just like the ambiguity.

This film also has one of the first plot twists or surprise endings as you call it. Studying its twist would be another article and a spoiler-filled conversation.
Let’s not do it today.

This film created pathway for German Expressionism, which is an artistic movement that shows distorted realities through subjective perspective. This film might be the early works of that movement. The film is divided into six acts and every act has around 15 minutes of runtime. Yes, this film is not long so you can watch it in one and half hour. There is so much trickery and artistic value in the frames of this film that I can’t even fully analyse. One of the key aspects that I learned was the ‘iris shot’.

The Iris Shot is a shot which circles on one thing and blackens everything else. Robert Wiene is clearly fond of this shot. Lots of scenes end with the iris shot. This, in fact, gives more cartoonish look to the movie.

The actors of this film also inhabit the crazy world. They convey their acting through their body language since there are neither dialogues, nor too many close-ups. But they are undeniably effective and make us uncomfortable. Mostly, Werner Krauss, who portrays Dr. Caligari is just amazing as the madman who is affectionate of a somnambulist.

You can also notice the influence of this film on other films. This film supposedly influenced various genres. Not only Psychological Horror but also Film Noir.
The entire production design of Bates Hotel from 1960’s Psycho can be termed as a spiritual successor of this film’s sets.
Or, The creepiness of this film influenced The Silence Of The Lambs. Look at the lighting and camerawork when Clarice and Dr. Lector meet.
Or, The political awareness and subtext of The Cabinet Of Dr. Caligari were potentially used in Get Out even though the latter portrays racism as horror in the 2017.
But that’s not all, there are tons of film other than these inspired by The Cabinet Of Dr. Caligari.
So, I believe this film is highly significant and an absolute gem of a picture. Finally, as I end this article I would like to say, maybe you are a Film Student or you like analyzing films or you just love watching films with content. Anyway, The Cabinet Of Dr. Caligari is a movie that shouldn’t be easily missed by you. This film might ask too much of you in order to comprehend, but boy is it worth it?
You can watch this film on YouTube or buy a DVD if you got the money.