Intcatinfo A Masterpiece!

RipDelight This is a tender, generous movie that likes its characters and presents them as real people, full of flaws and strengths.

Merolliv I really wanted to like this movie. I feel terribly cynical trashing it, and that's why I'm giving it a middling 5. Actually, I'm giving it a 5 because there were some superb performances.

Marva It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

exe_malaga93 Georges Méliès was more like an experimenter, who took advantage of the invention of the first film cameras to create innovative techniques in this art. This is what, as we see, he had more in common with other filmmaking pioneers of that time, such as Lumiere brothers, only the difference is that the latter were "scientists" experimenting with their new creation, while Méliès, who was also a professional magician, aimed to impress the audience with their tricks, something that in this case, he greatly does.This short, while it has a simple set-up (but there was a clear intention to tell a story after all, something that was not very common in other "films" at that time), is quite interesting and reasonably entertaining, and it allows the showcasing of very good special effects.It has a few comic relief characters, such as the cowardly cavalier, whose final scene has a bit of dark humor, or the villain's assistant (a possible precedent of Igor from Frankenstein?), which work all right.Perhaps some will find it confusing due to the pace being too fast but the results are worthy.Even though he would end up doing more notable works, in this one, you can already perceive Méliès' talent to entertain and amaze, something that many directors today do, or at least try. And the fact that it is said that he played a cunning mastermind (the Devil itself), brings a bit of irony to the table.

Horst in Translation (filmreviews@web.de) It didn't happen too often that the possibly most notable early silent movie director, Georges Méliès, overshoots the mark, but this is one example where he did. Nobody's perfect, I guess. This film is packed with the the diabolically supernatural as well as with Méliès' usual magic tricks, show etc. Lots of it is related to a kettle here. Unfortunately he goes for quantity over quality from start to finish and packs so much action in this short film that it's just one spectacular thing happening after the other and the story pays the price for it. I wish he had focused a bit more on precision instead of turning this basically into a showcase of 3 minutes that also lacks quality in terms of the physical aspect of the film itself. It's really almost impossible to see and understand what exactly is going on. Sometimes less can be more and this is one perfect example. Not recommended. Méliès has done better many times.

Michael_Elliott Le manoir du diable (1896) *** (out of 4) aka The House of the DevilEarly Georges Melies trick film has a bat appearing inside a castle when it then transforms into the Devil himself. Soon this creature is using spells to make other creatures come to life. LE MANOIR DU DIABLE is going to be a big interest to those Melies die-hards such as myself but I think horror fans will also get a real kick out of this. To say this isn't one of the earliest examples of a horror film would be rather crazy because not only do we get the Devil and black magic but there are also ghosts, a skeleton and various other ghastly images. When viewed against today's technology I'm sure there are some that might laugh at these effects but once you consider these were being done in 1896 you really can't help but applaud them. Melies was clearly years ahead of everyone else and the effects still hold up quite well today. I really loved how the different people began to appear even though the editing effects are quite obvious. Another nice touch was some of the black comedy thrown in and for just one example check out how the skeleton is used. Another major plus is that Melies plays the main character so well and with such energy.

r-j-marsh this film, although generally seen as the first horror, was in fact originally intended to amuse rather than scare. its only when you look at it with todays understanding of horror conventions that we see it as such. yes, it does correspond with the whole dark and impending thing and have aspects of the supernatural and creatures that we, as a modern cinema going audience connect automatically with horror, but if you view it as those at the time would have, you start to see that contrary to being a fear inspiring piece, it is actually a very interesting and cleverly put together series of artistic images. also, bearing in mind the level of filmic technology available at the time, is a fairly superior piece, but most definitely not a horror.