YEAR: 1896

DIRECTOR: Georges Méliès

STARRING: Unknown

Made in 1896 and often referred to as the first horror film ever made, Georges Méliès’ The House of the Devil may not have shocked many audiences through terror, but its innovations of film technique certainly would have. This silent, three-minute film is remarkable for its ingenious use of multiple exposures to create stop-motion optical illusions in which figures appear and disappear, as though by magic. 

GEORGES MÉLIÈS

Méliès, a performing magician experienced in illusion, began experimenting with film in 1896. He is often considered alongside Thomas Edison and the Lumière brothers as one of the pioneers of the medium. By the time he made The House of the Devil he had already made dozens of films (all in 1896), experimenting with the film techniques he used to create the optical tricks he used in that film. Méliès would go on to make more than 500 films, the most significant being A Trip to the Moon (1902). However, the majority of these are lost. 

THE FILM

The film opens upon the scene of a bat flying inside a medieval castle, before suddenly morphing into the Devil. Several more apparitions occur throughout the film, as the Devil conjures his impish assistant and a cauldron, and then brews his potion until a woman rises from it. 

The devil disappears and two chevaliers appear. The pair are then terrorised, in comical fashion, as the imp appears and disappears, prodding the men each time with a pitchfork. Various objects appear and disappear, the bat comes back, then turns into the Devil, then four ghosts (humans clad in bedsheets) appear, and so forth… The film ends when a chevalier producing a crucifix, making the devil cower and disappear.

The central conceit of the film — the optical illusion of characters and objects appearing and disappearing — may not shock a modern audience so used to special effects, but the painstaking choreography and editing that would have gone into each illusion and Méliès’ vision of using multiple exposures to create the effect ought to amaze.

LEGACY

At some point along the way the film disappeared, and it was thought lost. It wasn’t until 102 years after its creation, in 1988, that it was discovered again. Oddly, it reappeared in the New Zealand Film Archive, as if by magic.