THE CABINET OF DR. CALIGARI Remake ON DVD JUNE 5th

[HorrorBob]

IMAGE ENTERTAINMENT TO RELEASE
DAVID LEE FISHER’S REMIX OF
THE CABINET OF DR. CALIGARI
ON DVD JUNE 5

Image Entertainment will release David Lee Fisher’s groundbreaking recreation of the horror film classic The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari on DVD June 5. Fisher’s reproduction of the film stars Doug Jones (Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer, the Hellboy series and Pan’s Labyrinth), Lauren Birkell (Castaway, Paparazzi), Judson Pearce Morgan (“Angel”), Daamen Krall (The Lion King, The Nightmare Before Christmas) and Neil Hopkins (“Lost”).
The original 1919 German Expressionistic classic, Das Kabinett des Doktor Caligari, was a never before seen tour-de-force in visual imagery and imaginative storytelling that set the standard for all horror films to come. The idea of faithfully recreating the astonishing world of Caligari was no small task and resulted in a unique process that marks a first for the film industry.
Fisher wanted to re-imagine the film in a way ultimately respectful of the original. “I wanted to make more of a remix of the film rather than a remake,” Fisher said. “I wanted to discover what Caligari could become by adding dialogue and a richer exploration of theme and character.”
By scanning a print of the original film, images taken of its sets and locations were digitized and enhanced. Actors were then filmed on green-screen and composited into the original film’s imagery in post-production: a process never before seen in the history of filmmaking. Though the live-action production was filmed in only nine days, the painstaking post-production of the film, which involved cleaning up the original images and seamlessly integrating new actors, took nearly 10 months to complete. The final product is of such meticulous attention and detail that it, not only stands out on its own, but also as a faithful homage to the original macabre cult masterpiece.
Neil Genzlinger of The New York Times calls the film, “Scary, disturbing, intriguing, all at once.” The film “Exerts fascination…” and is “…an undeniably clever commingling of a new (and spoken dialogue) with a silent classic…” according to Variety. TV Guide says, “Fisher’s film is a triumph,” and is “…authentically stunning and elegantly nightmarish.” The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari was also awarded the “Audience Choice Award” as well as the “Best Cinematography” and “Best visual Effects” awards at the 2005 Screamfest Horror Film Festival.
Written and directed by David Lee Fisher, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari is a Highlander Films production produced by Leonard McLeod and Paula Elins. Fisher edited the film and Christopher Duddy is the director of photography. Eban Schletter provides the score.

(see TV Guide review below)

By Maitland McDonagh

If Tim Burton had made The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993) as a black-and-white, live-action feature, it might look something like David Lee Fisher's digital reworking of Robert Wiene's 1920 German Expressionist classic, but with sound and dialogue. The shadow play begins in an eerily stylized garden, where young Francis (Judson Pearce Morgan) tells a curious older gentleman the sad story of his finacee, Jane (Lauren Birkell), who lost her reason under circumstances so fantastic even he can scarcely believe them. Francis and his best friend, Alan (Neil Hopkins), who grew up together in small-town Holstenwall, always seemed unlikely companions: Francis is steady and pragmatic, while Alan is a poet, prone to melancholy and recently recovered from a nervous breakdown. Both loved Jane, but their rivalry was friendly. While enjoying the annual fair, Alan and Francis took a break from carousing to visit the tent of Dr. Caligari (Daamen J. Krall) and his mysterious somnambulist, Cesare (Doug Jones). When roused temporarily from his eerie sleep, Caligari tells the rapt crowd that Cesare can foretell the future. Cesare predicts that Alan will live only until "tomorrow's dawn," and sure enough, he's stabbed to death during the night. Francis' search to uncover the truth behind his friend's murder leads him — and Jane — into the darkest, most crooked back roads of a madman's mind. As a purely technical achievement, Fisher's film is a triumph: He digitally scanned all the original film's wildly stylized backdrops and then carefully restaged each scene, blending old and new footage almost seamlessly in postproduction. If some of the cast is a little stiff (notably young lovers Morgan and Birkell), others are strikingly good, particularly Hopkins as the fragile, doomed Alan. Kraal is a fine, spooky Caligari, and Jones, who's developed a small specialty of giving real performances through heavy effects in films like Hellboy (2004) and Pan’s Labyrinth (2006), makes a thoroughly credible Cesare, the part made famous by Conrad Veidt. Fisher's dialogue draws heavily on the original film's intertitles and script directions, and the addition of sound is a plus for moviegoers uncomfortable with the artificial embarrassment of silence. But the film's stars are still the twisted black and white street sets flanked by inky, tortured trees, crooked exteriors, flattened perspectives and bizarrely proportioned interior spaces. 90 years after they first amazed and scandalized moviegoers, they're still authentically stunning and elegantly nightmarish.