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The Perils of Amazon Prime Instant Movies

Tonight, we stumbled upon Caligula. None of us had seen it but we’d all heard of it. Charlie was reading to us from Wikipedia as we watched.

Charlie: We’re watching Caligula. It’s supposed to be porn.

Chels: Oh, okay. Some half-naked lady is prancing through the woods. This isn’t so bad. Maybe people back in the 80s just overreacted. (THIS WOULD LATER PROVE TO BE UNTRUE)

Toph: (scene of nude chain gang workers) I guess they used to hammer things naked in Rome.

Chels: (a bunch of naked people are now sitting in a huge cement room with a pool in the center) Is this a Roman bath? Why are there nursemaids everywhere?

Chels: What’s wrong with Peter O’Toole’s face?

Toph: He’s supposed to be 70.

Chels: What are with those lesions though?

Toph: STDs.

Charlie, reading from Wikipedia: It’s one of only two films Roger Ebert has ever walked out of. His review is the most scathing he’s ever given.

Charlie: (Caligula does a weird thumbs-up dance in the bath house for seemingly no reason) What’s with the dancing.

Toph: This is an awesome dance!

(We jump to outside where there’s a weird jumble of stuff going on. Lots of naked people milling around and drinking lots of wine.)

Toph: It’s about to get real. (Two guards are holding a man by each arm and under the neck.) They took off his pants and they’re funneling wine down his throat.

Charlie: Ancient beer bong.

Charlie: Oh, there’s a guy on stilts with a giant erection.

(There are also strangely deformed people everywhere: a three eyed woman, a person with little tiny hands growing out of the back of their normal–sized hands, etc.)

Toph: WHAT IS GOING ON.

(The guy with the wine being shoved down his throat dies but we’re not exactly sure how. They don’t show anything but his face and a bunch of red liquid (wine? blood?) on the ground. UPDATE: Oh god, I just read Ebert’s full review and it describes what happened to this guy. Let’s just say I wish I didn’t know.)

We only made it through about fifteen minutes, and we mostly spent that time wondering what the hell was going on. Whether that’s because the film is incoherent, or because the R-rated version had to cut about an hour of gore to be released, who knows.

We ultimately decided to just watch Center Stage for the hundredth time, because who can beat a motorcycle in a modern ballet with choreography set to Michael Jackson? No one, that’s who.