Caligula et Messaline (1981) User Reviews

Caligula on Cheese

[Tweetienator · 4/10 · 5 August 2022]

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.

Horse play in Ancient Rome

[jaibo · 5/10 · 12 March 2009]

One of the small slew of Roman histories which followed in the wake of Tinto Brass' critically reviled but commercially successful Caligula, Bruno Mattei's Caligula and Messalina doesn't have a great deal to add but what it does have is pretty eye-popping. Unlike Brass' monumental work, Mattei's atrocity has Caligula die about halfway through, continuing the story into the reign of Claudius until he tires of his disgraceful wife Messalina and has her put to the sword. The film is, then, more the story of Messalina than of Caligula, although you wouldn't know it from the set-up, which simply retreads the familiar Caligula story, beginning with some appallingly clunking exposition speeches, the best that can be said about which is that what they expose is then shown on screen, making them not only poor scriptwriting but staggeringly redundant.

The story is enlivened by Mattei's trademark use of stock footage, which means that intermixed with the cheap and cheerless original film are crowd scenes, senate scenes and gladiatorial scenes from early 1960s peplum, including Pontius Pilate and Leone's The Colossus of Rhodes. As usual with Mattei, the stock footage stands out like a sore thumb, or in this case is like a perfect hand on which his own sore thumb has been stuck. Not content with chivvying things up in this fashion, Mattei provides us with not one but two scenes of equine congress in quick succession – the ass's milk for Messalina's bath is helped along by bringing in a long-donged mule to tup the ass, and Caligula's famous senator horse is shown in congress with a mare at the stables,; both scenes include explicit footages of the animal's sexual organs, the latter sequence intercutting footage from Borowczyk's The Beast. Both sequences are about as unnecessary as can be imagined, but they do perk the jaded interest after what has been a fairly dull first 45 minutes.

After this, things get better as Caligula is killed and the story is a little bit less familiar. Messalina, now Claudius' Empress, craves nothing more than huge dick, and is serviced by her well-hung eunuch before skipping down the brothel to try the legendarily huge member of an out-of-towner client (played by the ugliest man to ever hit the screen, Salvatore Baccaro from The Beast in Heat). There's an amusing episode where the Empress feeds a lover to the lions, but the film is for the most part pretty flat, poorly acted and unimaginatively directed, so apart from the outré elements, there's little to engage, and most viewers I should think will be pretty relieved when Messalina meets her end, allowing the film to.

Were there G-strings in 00-41?

[selfdestructo · 4/10 · 29 July 2022]

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.

This movie is bad even for an exploitation film

[PeterRoeder · 4/10 · 21 October 2009]

I just saw this movie, and I cannot believe how poor it was even for an exploitation film. I am not familiar with the accurate history of the real Caligula but it could not have been anything like in this movie. Of course, that's not necessary in an exploitation film but in this case it is just too stupid. Their seems to have been absolutely no research into the actual life in Rome at that time. Moreover, the sex scenes are really poor. Maybe with one or two erotic moments, and with one or two attractive females. The torture scenes are just terrible and depressing. At least a movie like "Hostel" portrays torture in a more interesting fashion - there is something about the early exploitation films that make you want to scream out in boredom at the stupid torture scenes. All things considered, this is a horrible movie which should never have been made. I feel the same about movies about torture in the Holocaust. Movies like that are simply dangerous to the mind, and a complete waste of time and life. It is difficult to prove that movies like that are actually damaging to the mind, and I don't mean it in any moral sense, but we all know that movies like that are absolute trash, and that we would be better off watching something interesting. I bought Caligula because I thought it might be good but it wasn't. I think, the Druuna comic book series is excellent. But this Caligula film doesn't deliver anything other than negative and stupid stuff.

A hopeful but poor cash-in, on 'Caligula'.

[RatedVforVinny · 4/10 · 19 December 2019]

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.

Not as bad as "Caligula", but still best avoided

[Groverdox · 3/10 · 7 April 2018]

"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?

Messy

[kosmasp · 3/10 · 24 December 2023]

No pun intended - this is the third Caligula movie I have seen. All are about excesses ... about mad men in power of sorts. And have obviously the main character in common - although this revolves around a few more people than just him - the title already suggests that, so no brownie points for seeing through this (or any pieces of clothes that will allow that too).

Acting is all over the place, but I was only able to watch the English dubbed version. Not that what they filmed was one language - back then they used to film movies in many different languages in Italy that is. Anyhow the emotions are a bit lost - even those in the quite explicit scenes. But you probably will not watch it because of that. Many versions exist of the movie - and the movie is a quite the mess ... makes almost no sense, but tries to shock you.

Does not succeed in the way the other two movies were able to. This apparently builds upon other movies (there is one where Messaline is the main character), which I have not seen ... I doubt this would have fared better in my mind if I had though .. just saying.

Needed more and less

[QueenoftheGoons · 1/10 · 21 June 2022]

Okay its Caligula we need no story and very little dialog. It needed more caligulating and less talk, less action; okay its about Caligula. Show the beastiality that was done in the Colosseum, show more good Caligula scenes like in the actual Caligula movie with McDowell. Show it people!

Mattei goes Roman

[BandSAboutMovies · 5/10 · 17 May 2021]

Vincent Dawn, in case you couldn't guess, is Bruno Mattei and here, he's making one of the several Caligulasploitation movies he'd churn out in his career. If you thought, "I liked Tinto Brass' Caligula but I really wish it wasn't so highbrow," then Bruno - or Vincent - is your man.

Antonio Passalia, who co-directed this and Mattei's other Romesplotation film, Nero and Poppea - An Orgy of Power, also appears in both of these movies as Cladius. But the real story revolves around Messalina (Betty Roland, who not to sound like a broken record, but also appeared in Nero and Poppea), who has one goal: to be Empress of Rome. If that takes fighting in the gladiator pits or literally blowing Claudius' mind, so be it.

Meanwhile, Caligula's sister Agrippina (Françoise Blanchard, The Living Dead Girl and, yes, both of these movies) sleeps with her own brother before eliminating him, all so that her son Nero can become Emperor. How will she make that move? Well, Messalina sleeps with everyone - even pulling off a surprise terzetto on her wedding night with a muscular man who is under 147 centimeters and somehow bedding a eunuch - and it comes back to haunt her when she becomes pregnant while her husband is fighting in a foreign war.

Agrippina is not to be stopped in her goals. She's also a gladiator, albeit one that can do karate, and not shy when it comes to castrating her victims.

As if this movie couldn't be any wilder, Mattei falls back to his tricks of, well, ripping off scenes from other movies, lifting from The Colossus of Rhodes, Pontius Pilate and The Beast.

To be honest, I'm shocked that there weren't more of these Roman epics filtered through the nothing-held-back mania of Italian maniacs like Mattei. Maybe they didn't sell as well as prison, cannibal and last days of the Third Reich films.

Power can corrupt - but not all rulers are corruptible.

[bbhlthph · 8/10 · 12 March 2006]

Released in 1982, this is an Italian film which was probably intended to exploit the publicity associated with Tinto Brasso's notorious 1979 release "Caligola". It is clearly a low budget production, shot mainly in the studio, with a number of larger scale dramatic sequences borrowed from other films incorporated at points where these fit reasonably well. Several versions have been released, and run for significantly different times (for example, IMDb lists its running time at 111m, but my VHS copy runs only 92m 41s), so be aware that certain of my comments may not be applicable to all versions. The film provides an interesting study of the life of Messalina, the Roman Empress first married to the mad emperor Caligula and then after his assassination (which takes place at about the mid-point of the film) to his successor Claudius; and it would have been better titled Caligula and Claudius, or just Messalina. Historically it is not strictly accurate but probably provides a fairly realistic interpretation of life in Rome during the periods of the two Emperors concerned. The first half provides a beautifully crafted confirmation of the dictum that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely, but the second shows a very different scene when Claudius takes the throne, introduces careful and incorruptible administrators and rapidly repairs the damage to the fabric of Roman society caused by his predecessor. Presumably the intention is to show that absolute power does no more than give any ruler the freedom to behave in accordance with his natural character, and in this sense it can be regarded as a film with an important message to convey.

Historically the reign of Caligula is regarded as exceptionally violent and cruel, and the film has to make this clear to viewers who are not familiar with the history of this period. Whereas other filmmakers have succumbed to the temptation to exploit the violence in a pornographic way, it is greatly to the credit of this film that unnecessary violence has been largely avoided and much of that which is shown remains implicit rather than explicit. Caligula maintained a vast network of spies, and individuals who spoke against him would often disappear - probably to meet an unspeakable end. This is brought out early in this film, not by showing such a sudden disappearance and what followed, but by a restrained warning from one army officer to another who had been a little too loose in his conversation. There is a brief scene in a Roman torture chamber when plotters against the Emperor are being interrogated, but (in my copy at least) this is less explicit than similar scenes in many films depicting events in mediaeval Europe. A legend that Messalina, a very junior lady in Caligula's court, was trained by her mother to come to his attention by mastering such masculine skills as swordplay, and then demanding to demonstrate these, has been incorporated into the film; and the nearest it comes to becoming pornographic is during a fairly graphic swordplay sequence in the Coliseum which unexpectedly ends in not Messalina but the gladiator having to appeal to the Emperor to spare his life. This sequence clearly shows the violence and cruelty which was associated with the Roman Circus. However it forms an important part of the story, and in my opinion it is treated with enough restraint to be more acceptable than many of the violent scenes incorporated (with less reason) in certain films intended exclusively for children today. Later, even the assassination of Caligula is shown without a rather meaningless bloodbath involving all and sundry; and in the second half of the film after Claudius has taken the throne, the trust shown by the Emperor in his chosen advisers (both military and civil) is clearly brought out. Nudity?, yes there is nudity in many of the scenes showing the decadence of Caligula's Imperial Court, but it is never obtrusive - it always seems a natural part of any scene where it occurs. Afterwards, when looking back on the film, it is very hard to remember which scenes these were. There are none of the visual excesses to be found in films such as Tinto Brasso's "Caligola". Another sequence displays the continuing decadent life at Court after Caligula's death during a period when Claudius and his legions were campaigning in Britain, this very effectively shows decadence as an ongoing characteristic of life among the Roman ruling class of the period, not something which was introduced at the whim of a mad Emperor. This film is definitely not just softcore pornography, and it provides two very important lessons for us today. The first is that absolute power will only corrupt those rulers who are corruptible, whilst the second, even more important but maybe a little less obvious, is that mankind has changed very little during the past two millennia; and that many rulers, such as Hitler, Idi Amin, Pinochet or Sadaam Hussein who have been given absolute power during the past century, have shown a behaviour pattern very little different from that of Caligula.

Overall this film, together with Fellini's Satyricon, have both significantly contributed to my limited understanding of what life may have been like in classical Rome. No one today can really appreciate how it would have felt if they had been a part of Roman society, but we must recognise that, for most Roman citizens, family life continued under Roman law in what was probably a remarkably stable pattern for the period. This film is enjoyable to watch and, despite having been rated by many jurisdictions for 18+ viewing only, I believe that watching it would make a positive contribution to the history education of most high school children.

Softcore sex aplenty in this low budget Caligula rip-off.

[BA_Harrison · 6/10 · 26 November 2014]

Made to cash in on the notoriety of Tinto Brass's 1979 movie 'Caligula', Italian trashmeister Bruno Mattei's 'Caligula and Messalina' is packed to the gills with depravity. Despite lacking the hardcore action and graphic gore to be found in Brass's movie, Mattei's production (available on German DVD in an uncut 108 minute version) is still fairly entertaining stuff.

John Turner stars as nutty Roman Emperor Caligula, who commits incest with his sisters, makes his horse a member of the Senate, and executes the innocent on a whim.

Messalina (played by gorgeous Betty Roland) is a power-hungry nymphomaniac who will stop at nothing to become Empress of Rome. She brings herself to the attention of Caligula by battling in the gladiator arena and it is not long before she achieves her goal, upsetting the Emperor's youngest sister Agrippina, who hopes that her son Nero will eventually become ruler of Rome.

Agrippina successfully plots Caligula's downfall, but Messalina rains on her parade by immediately jumping into the sack with his successor, Claudius. But naughty old Messalina can't commit herself to one man, and shags everyone in sight, including a grotesque, but well-endowed, frequenter of brothels, a randy midget, her eunuch(!?!?) and an ex-lover. When she ends up pregnant, and it is obvious that the father is not Claudius (since he has been away fighting in foreign lands), Agrippina finally sees her opportunity to be rid of her nemesis once and for all.

Chock full of graphic sleaze (nudity, simulated sex, Bacchanalian orgies, rape and buggery), this movie is definitely not one for the easily offended. And if none of that bothers you, then the graphic scenes of horses and donkeys getting jiggy will probably do the trick. Surprisingly, in contrast, the violence is pretty low-key, with most of it happening off screen.

Mattei, obviously working with a low budget, resorts to padding his movie with footage from other films, particularly for crowd scenes requiring many extras, but to be fair it all works pretty well. 'Caligula and Messalina' is fun slice of schlock entertainment and is worth a viewing for fans of historical exploitation, but those hoping for the polished look and excesses of its more famous predecessor may be disappointed.

Tons of sex

[kavyass · 10/10 · 26 August 2013]

Movies is all about messalina how she gets into power by her body.Movie has lots and lots of nudity..It has many disturbing kinds of sex incest between mom and daughter,animal sex,interracial sex,Midget sex,Group sex...But it never shows penetration or male nudity...

And actress has played very brilliant portrayal of messalina empress..her mother teaches how to make men fall in our prey and she fights as first female gladiator and she cuts male penis nothing shown explicit,and she goes on by sex and makes everyone to fall

If you really looking for medieval sex without violence or gore this is the right movie Go for it.......

Very good Mattei joint but not his ultimate work.

[MonsterVision99 · 7/10 · 1 September 2023]

Mattei's sardonic riff on Brass' Caligula picks up the symbols and exploitation elements that expressed the themes of political perversion and lunacy of the 1979 masterwork but manages to add an even more evident Sadean influence both in it's redundant and disjointed plot and casual or vulgar use of deviant sex and brutal violence, devoid of the poetic bloodshed and tasteful nudity present before Guccione intervened in that other production. Here, Mattei displays his usual masterful skills at making dynamic and memorable images of apparently vulgar material but charges them with his usual iconoclast ideas about power, this time using ostentatious roman scenery as a setting instead of his usual nazi military installations, catholic churches or prisons. He also elevates the female figure of these roman stories by having the main female lead engage in typically male schemes (like the ones that killed emperors such as Julius Cesar and Caligula himself) and confrontations, both physically (the gladiatrix battle that functions as a metaphor for her struggle in the male dominated field of being a powerful ruler) and politically, of course.

The film's credits are displayed over a toy-like and clearly artificial miniature rome, as if the heavy hitters in the story inhabit a blatantly false and fictitious world, maybe rome is a playground not only for Mattei as the real narrator of this story or even the emperors that take part in it but for the manipulative and nymphomaniac Messalina, perhaps the whole system or the idea of government is in itself fake and absurd. Not only that, but the introductory image is that of a statue of Caligula's white horse (common symbol of extravagance and political ineptitude) but there are two more along with it, making it an animalistic three way: Caligula, Messalina and perhaps Claudius? The horse motif runs wild in this film and it's even mocked by human reenactments of horse actions or with the use of both horses and donkeys in sexual scenes that typically employ humans, while someone like D'Amato would gleefully rejoice in such sordidness, Mattei looks at it with stoic detachment for dramatic and thematic purposes.

It's an overall solid but not hugely potent work by the great Mattei.

I want to be a Roman Man in 420

[Brian_Cote-1 · 10/10 · 24 March 2012]

If there was a possible scientific way i could travel to the past it would be in the roman times.

This is because the life expectancy was trivial and usually 25-30.

The women still had big bushes of hair on their vagina and men could walk around being rich doing what they wished watching gladiators fight and being a political snide bastard using words and power to corrupt and felicitate your enemy's while being able to get away with anything because of the lack of government control in the peoples way.

I Love USA, But i want to live in 420 B.C ^_^

Also i see this move about Caligula factually correct which means more to me then any of my dreams.

The glorious decadence of Rome Italian exploitation style

[Woodyanders · 8/10 · 17 August 2022]

Rome, circa 40 A. D. Depraved and deranged emperor Caligula (a spot-on wicked portrayal by Vladimir Brajovic) falls under the spell of the seductive and insatiable, but ruthlessly driven and ambitious female gladiator Messalina (well played to the lusty hilt by gorgeous brunette Betty Rowland). Meanwhile, Caligula's spiteful sister Agrippina (foxy blonde Francoise Blanchard) plots to take Messalina out.

Notorious Italian schlockmeister Bruno Mattei really delivers the pleasingly trashy goods with his customary lack of taste and restraint: We've got oodles of tasty bare female flesh, hot semi-pornographic sex scenes, a deliciously debauched tone, brutal torture, bloody violence, and even a couple of scenes with animals doing the deed (!). Moreover, the copious use of obvious stock footage gives this flick a surprisingly epic sense of scope. Silvie Dezabauneix makes a nice impression as the devious Drusilla while the singular Salvatore Baccaro makes a memorable uncredited appearance as an ugly, but well-endowed stud. A sleazy treat.