‘Caligula: The Ultimate Cut’ Review: The Emperor’s New Clothes

Based on conventional metrics like, say, tastefulness or storytelling integrity, the 1980 movie “Caligula” is not good. It is, however, completely nuts. And that has turned out to be more than enough to fuel an obsessive cult over the decades.

Part of what drives the enduring interest in “Caligula” is its over-the-top combination of outré aesthetics, exploitation-film tropes, a Gore Vidal screenplay, and a cast including Malcolm McDowell, Helen Mirren and Peter O’Toole.

Even more crucial is the belief that a masterpiece lurks within the mangled original release. Now attempting to prove that theory is “Caligula: The Ultimate Cut,” the latest iteration of a film that has gone through an unfathomable number of edits over the decades. This is the rare re-edited version of a movie that features less graphic sex and violence than the original. What kind of world are we living in?

Long story short: After production on “Caligula” ended, the producer (and Penthouse publisher) Bob Guccione decided to enliven the rise and fall of the infamous Roman emperor (an impressively committed McDowell) by splicing in pornographic segments.

Now Thomas Negovan has patched together a cut that he claims is more faithful to Vidal’s intentions, using nearly 100 hours of footage unearthed in the Penthouse archive. The problem is that the original shoot, directed by Tinto Brass, was so fraught from the start that there seems to have been little agreement on the intentions and tone.