I have been looking to expand my horror horizons, and what better place to take my first tentative steps into this normally loud genre’s silent era than The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari? It is a waking nightmare in which every wall and building is crooked, every shadow seems to have a mind of its own and every character moves like a puppet on invisible strings.

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari is about as elusive as a waking nightmare, too. Each of its six acts introduces a new twist that makes the story feel even darker and stranger. But, far from being a ghostly pre-echo of M. Night Shyamalan, there is an extraordinary method to the madness. Director Robert Wiene turns even the simplest set pieces into something unnervingly surreal. His vision is German expressionism on steroids, with sets that look like they were built by someone experiencing a mental breakdown.

Werner Krauss brings an unhinged energy to the character of Dr. Caligari, who twists and transforms as much as the plot, and Conrad Veidt is tremendously creepy as Caligari’s sinister, somnambulant assistant/henchman/freak show oddity, Cesare—he reminded me of Nosferatu with better hair. Their dynamic is the perfect mirror of the film’s twisted, dreamlike world, where control and chaos are locked in constant battle.

All expression, mood and atmosphere, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari is a profoundly unsettling film. Though the framing narrative lands with a bit of a thud, ending with one twist too many, the film is a 75-minute nightmare from which I didn’t want to wake up.