Blu-ray Review: Caligula: The Ultimate Cut

STUDIO: Drafthouse Films/Unobstructed View | DIRECTOR: Tinto Brass | CAST: Malcolm McDowell, Peter O’Toole, Helen Mirren, Teresa Ann Savoy, John Gielgud
RELEASE DATE: Sept. 17, 2024; Oct. 22, 2024 (4K UHD) | PRICE: DVD $21.48 4K UHD $70.00, Blu-ray $26.98
BONUSES: two commentaries, trailer, featurettes, original 1980 theatrical version, more
SPECS: NR | 178 min. | Period drama | 1.78:1 widescreen | DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1/DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 | English and French subtitles

RATINGS (out of 5 dishes): Movie 1/2 | Audio  | Video  | Overall

With its budget of nearly $20 million (that’s mid-Seventies dollars), a cast that includes Malcolm McDowell, Hellen Mirren, Peter O’Toole and John Gielgud, and scene after scene of hardcore sex and violence, 1979’s Caligula, an epic historical drama on the controversial Ancient Roman emperor produced by Penthouse’s Bob Guccione and directed by Italian softcore auteur Tinto Brass, is often considered to be one of the most notorious “homemade” pornos ever produced. At the very, least, it’s one of the most expensive and star-filled…

Over the past 45 years, some dozen different versions of Caligula have emerged, the most recent being the 178-minute Caligula: The Ultimate Cut, which premiered at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival prior to a limited theatrical release by Drafthouse Films last August, and its arrival this month on Blu-ray and 4K Ultra HD formats.

Malcolm McDowell and Helen Mirren in Caligula: The Ultimate Cut.

Like many “notorious” films of yesteryear, the many tales that accompany the movie’s production and history—Guccione’s filming of hardcore sex scenes and inserting them into the film without the stars’ knowledge, original screenwriter Gore Vidal distancing himself from the project, the movie’s being banned in a number of countries—are often more entertaining (and intriguing!) than the film itself. There’s undoubtedly a juicy story behind how this latest version came about.

But The Ultimate Cut at least offers something a little different—a fresh reconstruction of the film by a producer, Thomas Negoyan, that seeks to more closely follow Vidal’s original screenplay (minus Guccione or Brass’s visions) and focus on the more historical and psychological aspects of the story. The result gives the stars significantly more screentime (particularly Helen Mirren) and removes the Guccione-produced hardcore elements.

Negoyan accessed nearly 100 hours of recently discovered footage from the Penthouse archive to craft this three-hour iteration (Brass is credited with “principal photography,” which doesn’t really expand or give much fresh insight into the story as it does draw more attention to the film’s dazzling art direction and costume design by frequent Fellini collaborator Danilo Donati, who did similar work on 1969’s Fellini Satyricon. But where Fellini’s over-the-top epic of first-century Rome offers a less-jagged if deliberate pace as it movies from episode to episode, this Ultimate Cut is still slow-moving, far-from-engaging work. And, again, that’s minus its most sexual and violent scenes that were seen in previous editions (though there’s still enough nudity, sex and violence to go ’round).

But not to worry: disc distributor Unobstructed View has also included a restored edition of Caligula’s 1980 theatrical version in the package, which includes all the excised naughty bits that the film has built its reputation upon.

Those who have been following Caligula’s strange trip over the past half-century are sure to be intrigued to compare and contrast the two versions—and they’ll probably dig The Ultimate Cut’s new opening animated credit sequence (though not so much the unengaging new score by Troy Sterling Nies).