The Haunted Castle (1896)

Original title

Le manoir du diable

Directed by

Georges Méliès

Genre

fantasy film, silent film, horror film, ghost film

Country

France

Runtime

3 min

Rating

6.4 of 10 from 210 voters

Elsewhere

IMDb

How it feels

This is a short silent film from 1896 by Georges Méliès. It shows a theatrical sketch in which a person encounters the Devil and ghosts. The film aims to make audiences laugh and wonder, not scare them.

playfulwhimsicalamusingotherworldlybriefstagedhistoricaltheatrical

What happens

The House of the Devil (French: Le Manoir du diable, lit. 'The Devil's Manor'), released in the United States as The Haunted Castle and in the United Kingdom as The Devil's Castle, is an 1896 French silent trick film directed by Georges Méliès. The film, which depicts a brief pantomimed sketch in the style of a theatrical comic fantasy, tells the story of an encounter with the Devil and various attendant phantoms. It is intended to evoke amusement and wonder from its audiences, rather than fear. However, because of its themes and characters, the film has been considered to technically be the first horror film. Such a classification can also be attributed to the film's depiction of a human transforming into a bat, a plot element which has led some observers to label the work the first vampire film. The film is also innovative in length; its running time of over three minutes was ambitious for its era. A single remake, also by Méliès, was produced one year later under the title Le Château hanté (The Haunted Castle), which is often confused with this film. The film was presumed lost until 1988, when a copy was found in the New Zealand Film Archive. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

Trailer

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