The world's first horror movie or a comedy?
This 1-minute-long film produced and performed by the brilliant French movie pioneer, Georges Melies (1861-1938), may be the first horror movie.
There are indications that this movie was actually meant to be a comical sketch (it was cataloged as such), but that it slid on its own accord into the horror category. How so?
Well, it features a confrontation between a man getting into bed to sleep, and an enormous cockroach-like insect that climbs up his sheets. A battle ensues as the man deploys a broom to subdue the insect, which tries to escape the onslaught by crawling up a wall. The victorious man manually deposits the dead insect in a chamber pot, which is put away in his nightstand. But, it is not over. The man continues to battle unseen insects on his bed. Did the large insect hatch eggs on the bed, or did it have a mass following of little ones?
Perhaps the movie was intended as a comedy, however, many of us are horrified by the thought of crawlers near us, much less on our beds, much less giant crawlers on our bed. It is understandable why many researchers prefer to characterize this movie as perhaps the first horror movie, and a forerunner of the horror subgenre of the giant killer bug films of the 1950s.
You decide whether it makes you laugh or if it horrifies you. It's on YouTube. It is currently rated a fairly good 5.8 on IMDb. I gave it a solid 7.0 for its wit. In fact, this 1-minute film may deserve an 8. What do you give it?
This 1-minute-long film produced and performed by the brilliant French movie pioneer, Georges Melies (1861-1938), may be the first horror movie.
There are indications that this movie was actually meant to be a comical sketch (it was cataloged as such), but that it slid on its own accord into the horror category. How so?
Well, it features a confrontation between a man getting into bed to sleep, and an enormous cockroach-like insect that climbs up his sheets. A battle ensues as the man deploys a broom to subdue the insect, which tries to escape the onslaught by crawling up a wall. The victorious man manually deposits the dead insect in a chamber pot, which is put away in his nightstand. But, it is not over. The man continues to battle unseen insects on his bed. Did the large insect hatch eggs on the bed, or did it have a mass following of little ones?
Perhaps the movie was intended as a comedy, however, many of us are horrified by the thought of crawlers near us, much less on our beds, much less giant crawlers on our bed. It is understandable why many researchers prefer to characterize this movie as perhaps the first horror movie, and a forerunner of the horror subgenre of the giant killer bug films of the 1950s.
You decide whether it makes you laugh or if it horrifies you. It's on YouTube. It is currently rated a fairly good 5.8 on IMDb. I gave it a solid 7.0 for its wit. In fact, this 1-minute film may deserve an 8. What do you give it?