A demented must-watch: Caligula – The Ultimate Cut reviewed

Caligula: The Ultimate Cut is a new version of the 1979 Caligula that is still banned in some countries (Belarus). The most expensive independent production of its time, it was intended to prove an adult film could be a Hollywood hit – but not everyone received it in that spirit.

‘Sickening, utterly worthless, shameful trash,’ wrote the late, great critic Roger Ebert, who walked out before it finished. Although this version is still violent and sexually explicit, it’s been reworked to show that, handled right, it had all the makings of a masterpiece.

There are whippings and sex swings and I think I saw someone doing it with a swan

In your dreams, pal. There’s no masterpiece, here. The only good news (kind of) is that you’ve never seen anything so full-on demented in all your life. It’s worth seeing just for that.

The original film had – to put it mildly – its problems. Gore Vidal wrote the screenplay but pulled out of the project when it became apparent that the director, Tinto Brass, had rewritten it according to his own vision. The producer was Bob Guccione (the founder of Penthouse magazine) who, once it was all in the can, forcibly ejected Brass, smuggled the footage from Rome to London where it was edited and had scenes of hardcore pornography inserted. It had attracted a first-rate cast – Malcolm McDowell, Helen Mirren, Peter O’Toole, Sir John Gielgud – who all then disavowed it, as well they might, given they’d effectively made a porno. (It did well on video.)

Step forward Thomas Negovan, a writer, director and art historian who, on discovering that 96 hours of footage existed, set about remaking it so that it would be more in keeping with Vidal’s vision while excising the hardcore elements. So that’s what we have here – and it opens as it means to go on.