Caligula and Messalina

I like Tinto Brass' Caligula a lot - it's a daring piece and a visually fine crafted one. Two years later, in 1981, Caligula et Messaline was published - this flick is something like the pulp/trash version of Caligula: like in the work of Brass you get a lot of nudity and some violence, but everything is heavily tainted by schlock and the smell of cheese. Most of those scenes of softporn and violence are not shocking or erotic but rather funny. Anyway, Caligula et Messaline is to a certain degree entertaining - if you like that sword and sandal genre in general, this one spiced up with some wannabe (sex)ploitation. Final words: one of those movies who you can rightly claim guilt pleasure if you are able to enjoy the trip from start to end.

I was interested in these cheap Italian exploitation knockoffs for one reason -- well, that would be Caligula's debaucherous life, but more specifically because I'm such a fan of Tinto Brass' unpleasant trash epic. This movie adds very little to the mystique, (redundantly) rehashing some of Caligula's exploits, then they off him about 40 minutes in. So, really, this is more of a story about his (second) cousin Messalina, who, let me tell ya, is a bigger slut than Caligula ever hoped to be.

One thing I found misleading, was that the Caligula and Messalina Blu-ray included an X-rated cut, just like Brass' did. So, 6 extra minutes of, uh, I dunno, God-knows-what. They ramp up the incest. The vast majority of the sex is simulated, and the countless orgy sequences are done in this super wide screen. One thing I did notice on screen, were a whole lot of shots with, well, an unpleasant part of the male anatomy. Which no one wants to see! Worse still, what IS graphic is not one, but TWO scenes of animals mating. Yikes.

Messalina's portion of the story is one of betrayal, uprising, sleeping with anything with a pulse, so much distant nudity that you become immune to it, and who's going to outstab everyone else to become empress. If you're expecting anything on par with Brass' film (real sex, outrageous performances, elaborate sets, elaborate medieval decapitating devices, distasteful violence, etc. Etc.), I think "sorely disappointed" is all you'll be left with.

"Caligula and Messalina", obviously made to cash in on the dispiriting success of the notorious "Caligula", is not quite as bad as that movie, which is faint praise indeed. It is, however, almost painfully boring: proof, if any were required, that wall-to-wall sex and nudity can't prevent a movie from becoming soporific.

The plot is, allegedly, about the Roman emperor Caligula, Messalina (the most notorious woman in Roman history), Agrippina (her rival), and the emperor Claudius. The movie has very little dialogue, and practically no exposition, so if you don't go in knowing a fair bit about these classical figures, you'll be left in the dark for much of the movie's run-time.

Though, of course, "Caligula and Messalina" isn't a historical picture. It's an exploitation movie. So, there are a lot of ridiculous added details, such as Messalina first getting Caligula's attention by fighting in the colosseum. Women didn't fight in the colosseum anyway, but even if they had, I'm pretty sure a blood-relative of the current emperor would never have found her way there. The movie ignores the fact that Messalina was related to Caligula and just gives you this lame introduction for her character, which could have worked a bit better if it had been directed with some kind of skill.

This is a motif throughout the whole film, in fact, and is part of the reason why it's so boring. Capable filmmakers shoot establishing shots of scenes that are framed so that we can see everything we need to see. The camera then provides close-ups of actors or action or significant details to make us feel involved in the action. "Caligula and Messalina" does the first part of this, and just seems to leave it at that. The camera is always too far away. If the director can't get us involved in the story, he could at least give us a good look at the sex and nudity the movie is chock full of, but alas, we don't get that either. The distance between the camera and the actors, and the generally poor camera angles, leaves most of the nudity hard to make out.

I'm pretty sure that if you are unfortunate enough to watch this movie, there's only one thing about it you will remember, and that is the two scenes of horses mating. One was more than enough, but "Caligula and Messalina" inexplicably includes two such scenes. Was Bruno Mattei, the filmmaker, actually trying to cause harm to his audience by making us watch this?

A laughable Italian exploitation, that uses stock footage from old sword and sandal epics. Certainly not the best example in the genre. Bruno Mattei, was indeed a prolific B-movie director (of 55 titles) and was working right up to his death until 2007.

This film does a terrible job of introducing you to the characters. Unless you've watched previous related media or know your history, you wouldn't have much of a clue who anyone is and how they relate to each other.

Locations are not clearly defined and you can't tell if characters that are seen to be travelling are either coming or going.

The nudity was satisfactory when combined with what should have been a plot but the sex scenes were disappointing when comparing it to the 1979 version.

To me, a lot of it seemed irrelevant to the story until I realised that the film was basically showing us that Messalina likes to increase her mileage no matter what.

When the pool scene took place I assumed they would be caught and someone would be killed... no, next bedfellow please!

There is a scene with two donkeys and then another with two horses soon afterwards. Both scenes are real thus more x-rated than anything that the humans do in this.

The simulated sex is everywhere in this and rather boring. They couldn't quite find a balance between genitals being far apart during the act or touching but not actually doing the act. Either way, it wasn't appealing.

The only thing that really interested me was one of the actresses that is always at Caligula's or Messalina's side. The woman with the tanned skin who was clearly a dancer by profession. She looked familiar as though I have seen her in modern films; although in reality she would be about 60 years old by now.

Overall, not really worth watching unless you are like me and you can't help but keep going down 'rabbit holes'.