44 years after the historical epic ‘Caligula’, producer Thomas Negovan has realized the creators' original vision with this version including mainly never-before-seen footage.
Shadowed by the murder of his entire family, the young, wary Caligula (Malcolm McDowell) eliminates his devious adoptive grandfather (Peter O'Toole) and seizes control of the declining Roman Empire, descending into a spiral of depravity, destruction, and madness.
A treatise on the corrupting influence of power, this extensive reconstruction restores the complete performances of McDowell and Helen Mirren as the promiscuous 'Caesonia', from an unprecedented amount of never-before-seen footage. Mirren was cut to only 20 minutes on screen in the original version but has 60 minutes here.
Tinto Brass was recruited for the project with a script by Gore Vidal. The script was eventually rewritten from scratch and by the end of the chaotic production, the film had doubled in budget and Brass was locked out of the edit by Bob Guccione.
Several crew understandably asked to have their names removed from the film and a legend was then born.
This is now a much better film than the original release, but do keep in mind that it is still very much an 18-certificate film.
