Absolutely brilliant

The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

Close shines in drama with strong language, adult themes.

First, like most people who might take an interest in this film, I am a huge fan of the 1920 original, so I'll take a chance with anything related to it. I was hooked right from the beginning with the opening scene where Francis begins to relate his story to the old man. Listening to the dialog between the two and then seeing the new Jane walk down the path, pushing aside the tree branches, was amazing. At first I felt the acting was overwrought and stilted, but this is actually more true to the original than more restrained acting would be. I have just watched the new Blu-ray of the original and the 2005 remake back to back. I thoroughly enjoyed them both.

1.) Is it marks or dollars? What's the currency in use in Hostenwall? Both? That's unsatisfactory and looks like an oversight.2.) It would help if everyone pronounced "Ceasare" the same way.I can see that the directory and writer took some care with the original... but... fleshing out the plot points were a mistake, in my opinion. The original production seemed mad because things were explained so partially - it seemed disjointed. This production attempts to clean things up, which was a mistake.A nice try, but artistically no triumph.

As a huge fan of the original—which I have seen more than a dozen times—I greeted Fisher's remake with great enthusiasm. I too attended the screening and Q & A at Two Boots Pioneer Theater, and came away with a deep impression of a director obsessed with this extraordinary and legendary film. While the dialogue at times seems insipid, it is precisely the American diction and its quirkiness that gives meaning to this silent film re-shot on the green screen, who breathe new life into the two-dimensional expressionist sets that wildly zig and zag. Precisely because it seems so utterly improbably to hear a bunch of tongue-twisted Americans speak the rephrased German silent titles does Fisher achieve success. I relished this fresh new- millennium perspective of the world of a madman seen in various contexts ranging from the insane asylum to the carnival with hurdy gurdy player. And in re-reading theorists such as Lotte Eisner and Siegfried Kracauer, it makes all the more sense that Americans are reprising these Weimar-era roles. Recall Decla's original release "You must become Caligari" posters of 1920; that's precisely what Daamen Kraal so vividly achieves.

The remake of "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari" has all the poles holding it up. We have plenty of shadows, plenty of new camera angles, and more tension than the original masterpiece. Of course you are going to see some scenes which mirror the original. This just proves the love which went into the making of this soon to be classic. The most remarkable parts of this film are the reprisals of the original flick's backgrounds, and a fantastic series of performances, especially the new Caligari who is even more bad tempered and crazier than ever. The new film focuses even more on the sanity of the tortured Francis, who seems to be losing his grip with his own world as the film progresses. The actor who portrays the killer Caesare is eerily similar to the first film's sleepwalking stabber. The black and white flavoring really gives you the impression that this film might have been made in the late 30's than the new millennium. All in all, a terrific remake and a film no horror purist can resist.