Caligari's Cure (1982)

Gloriously self-aggrandizing filmmaker Tom Palazzolo made an impressive feature debut with Caligari's Cure. If you know your Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, you'll remember that the climax of this 1919 Germa... read more n film revealed that the ostensible villain was actually a psychiatrist, and the nominal hero a certified looney. Palazzolo utilizes generous chunks of Caligari, comparing the expressionistic extremes of the earlier film's director Robert Wiene with modern artistic trends. It's a fairly obvious stylistic exercise, but it's just as entertaining as Palazzolo's hallucinatory short subjects. Caligari's Cure would make a felicitous double feature with the 1988 shorts collection Palazzolo's Chicago. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi