I'm probably one of the few people in the world who don't automatically categorize Joe D'Amato's film as 'worthless' or 'sleazy junk'. No, I actually support the opinion that he's a filmmaker with vision. With films like 'Buried Alive', 'Death Smiles at Murder' and 'Emanuelle and the Last Cannibals' he proved that he's capable of combining gruesome horror images and gore with a compelling script. This film, however, completely takes the edge off the above stated opinion. Caligula: The Untold Story is a very ugly and mediocre film about history's most notorious figure. Following Tinto Brass' controversial cult-epic, D'Amato focuses on the cruel and inhuman reign of the Roman emperor. This film particularly handles about a personal vendetta between a Moor-woman (whose friend got brutally killed) and the Emperor. She's torn between her personal feelings and her urge to take vengeance bla bla bla…

Caligula is a non-stop series of uninteresting sleaze, lame gore, terrible acting skills and inferior production values. The film starts out well enough, with a great cameo from Michele Soavi (later the director of masterpieces like 'Dellamorte Dellamore') trying to kill Caligula but, after this, it all goes downhill. David Cain is an incredibly bad actor and even the gorgeous Laura 'Black Emanuelle' Gemser doesn't look sensual enough to keep you watching. This film reminded me a lot about history lessons in school. The substance is fascinating enough, but it's brought in such a tedious and dull way. You're way better of watching Brass' epic staring Malcolm McDowell.

The critical derision heaped upon Tinto Brass' Caligula didn't stop that film from becoming a considerable box office hit which spawned a number of low-grade imitations. The best known of these is probably this entry from notorious Black Emmanuelle series director Joe D'Amato. He even ropes in the star of his best know films, Laura Gemser, to play the lead female role.

The "untold story" was hitherto untold because it didn't happen. D'Amato's film has as its main thread the story of a slave worshipper of Anubis (Gemser) who inveigles her way into Caligula's court and bed in order to exact revenge on the Emperor for his rape and murder of said slave's former mistress, a coy Christian maid, a crime which the Emperor has palmed off on the Christian sect itself. None of the historical records of Caligula's rein show him being bothered or bothering with the newly formed Christian religion, and it was not until his successor Claudius successor Nero that the Christians came in for persecution. So much for history. Yet one doesn't go to a film like this for an accurate history lesson. But what does one come to a film like this for? The story of the slave's revenge has little tension, although it turns potentially dramatically interesting when the revenger falls in love with her quarry. This means that, after various atrocities, we get a soft-focus, lushly scored "aren't we in love" sequence. Many year previously, Montiverdi had mocked romance by giving a beautiful love duet to Nero and Poppea, and whilst D'Amato's film doesn't quite reach the levels of sublime challenge that the maestro's opera does, it at least has a game or two to play with the idea of love conquering all. There ought to be dramatic potential in the slave's consequent quandary but sadly although Gemser is a fine presence on film and stretches her acting skills a little but further than she does in the Black Emmanuelle films, she hasn't got the range to carry complex emotions off.

The film begins with a prologue in which a poet tries to kill the Emperor, and has his tongue torn out and his arm and leg ligaments severed, so that he might "compose verses of hate in his head but never be able to speak or write them." A suitably lurid image of life under a tyrants rule.

The centrepiece of the film is an enormous orgy sequence, which holds up the action and loses sight of the lead characters but affords special pleasures of its own. It loses the leads because they are something like legitimate actors, and the orgy has its fair share of hardcore shots – masturbation, fellatio, vaginal intercourse – but it's the peripheral elements which shock. First we get a violent gladiatorial combat to the death, where two fighters pummel the hell out of each other wearing spiked gloves, spattering the orgiasts with blood; then we get the orgy itself, which is punctuated by such unappetising spectacles as gerontophilia and a man vomiting into his hand then, without wiping his mouth, turning to kiss his lady again. The sequence has the usual weird effect, well practised by this director, of suddenly springing hardcore sex onto the viewer when hitherto things had been raunchy but softcore – the effect of suddenly seeing erections, split beavers and meat-shots is quite disorientating, and really adds to the sleaziness of proceeding. Caligula's antics were unacceptable, and here's a film that is also somewhat unacceptable…

Caligula: The Untold Story is punctuated by dream sequences in which the Emperor is haunted by guilt and retribution for his crimes. Add these to the scenes of pornography, violence, sexual training and Machiavellian machinations, the film comes across as a weird hybrid of Bunuel, Pasolini (in Salo mode),the Brass Caligula and a cheap grindhouse porn epic. If that sounds to your taste, you should love D'Amato's film, which is as ever with him quite unlike anything likely to be made these days.

A fact I would never admit to people I want to like me, I am a fan of Joe D'amato flicks. Here he is up to his old tricks; offering over the top blood shed, pointless plotting and (depending on which version you have) some X-rated sex scenes.

If you know anything about history, then there is no point in going through the plot. For those unaware, Caligula was a Ceaser and emperor of Rome. He was also generally regarded as the most brutal, demented ruler the empire ever had.

Joe D'amato strings together a lose revenge tale around his favorite leading lady, 'Black Emmanuel' Laura Gamser (funny, she's Asian). Her friend is killed by the diabolical Emperor in a botched rape attempt and she goes undercover into the place to get vengeance. Along the way we see three-ways, four-ways, prostitute training, a man impaled on a spike, the list just goes on. The coup de grace is a party scene in which we are treated to gladiators killing each other, a horse (yes, I said horse) hand job, and a long (if you have the real unedited version, which to my knowledge is out of print) orgy with all the X-rated trimmings.

D'amato flicks are most certainly an acquired taste. Most will find this to be filth, but if you have the mind for it, then this is one of the sleaze master's best.

6/10