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Larry Coressel claims to have been just "pleasantly surprised."

But getting more than 120 people to show up and actually pay money to watch a silent movie should have been like grabbing onto downed power lines.

A shock is putting it mildly.

"What blew me away is I only knew about 20 people," Coressel said.

He's talking about last fall's screening of "Nosferatu" at the State Theater with a new score performed live by his trio Equinox — a local group created last year to play along with all sorts of silent treasures.

They'll next accompany "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari" on Friday, March 28, at the State, one of only two surviving downtown movie theaters. (The less creepy of the two.)

Like "Nosferatu," the price is right — 5 bucks at the door.

Reflecting Coressel's tastes, he's matching Equinox with the more macabre movies that tumbled out of the silent era.

And that's fine. It's hard to believe, but the earliest horror films remain some of the most influential movies of all-time.

Out of all horror films, though, "Caligari" (1919) might just be the most so.

Like "Nosferatu," it's German, filmed at a time when, by law, all movies shown in Germany had to be made in Germany.

But when you stop to remember the "feature film" had only been in existence for a few years in 1919, "Caligari" was, and still is, a triumph.

Like Edvard Munch's "The Scream" brought to life by black magic, a distorted sense of reality makes the eerie story of a carnival and its murderous sideshow attraction all the more effective.

With sets that zig and zag, it still doesn't look like anything else.

Horror historian David Skal, whose book "The Monster Show" remains the one to get for a history of the genre, wrote that "Caligari" was a, "cultural sputnik launched out of nowhere by Europe."

Historically, it's the one movie that challenged the U.S. to begin looking at film as art.

Not bad for a horror flick.

How we got from that to "Saw IV" remains anybody's guess.

But almost 90 years after it was made, "Caligari" can still inspire experimentation.

Equinox — Coressel, Doug Baumle and Wayne Justice — aren't filmmakers. They aren't even trained musicians.

But if their previous scores for "Metropolis" and "Nosferatu" are any indication, "Caligari" will have a score that sounds every bit as out-there as the film looks.

"The kind of scores we do are probably the antithesis of what you'd be taught in school," said Coressel, a Springfield native who hosts mornings on the Dayton classical station WDPR. "At no point do we say, 'That's in the wrong key,' or, 'You can't play piano with drumsticks.' "

And the word is out about Equinox.

The trio will take "Nosferatu" to the Victoria Theatre in Dayton on Oct. 24 after a Dayton Ballet production of "Dracula."

So when it comes to Friday's showing of "Caligari" — see 'em while you still can for $5.

Never thought I'd be saying that about a group that accompanies silent movies.

Contact this reporter at (937) 328-0352 or amcginn@coxohio.com.

How to go

What: "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari" with a live score by Equinox

When: 8 p.m. Friday, March 28

Where: State Theater, 19 S. Fountain Ave.

Admission: $5