Monday, May 19, 2014

The Haunted House (1908)

Whimsical little trick film from pioneering Spanish director Segundo de Chomon, filled with his characteristic macabre sense of humor. Three travelers seek refuge from a storm inside a haunted house, in which various spirits and other ghostly occurrences (courtesy of some impressive stop-motion animation and other camera trickery) disturb their rest. De Chomon's use of closeups and advanced stop-motion effects mark his work as more sophisticated than that of Melies in this same period, though he certainly owes much to Melies' earlier films here.

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