MisterWhiplash
In this two minute movie, we get a guy who takes a skeleton and creates a monster. For what purpose? Who cares? It's a monster! Time to do the MASH! This is How to Make a Monster 101: add water. If no water available, throw on a white dress. Preferable if you have an Egyptian backdrop. Warning: the monster may do wild Muppety-dances and grow a giant neck and go tall and short at random moments because it's George Melies and he was the first delightful madman of the cinema. You'll have to get through the first minute of this two minute spectacle to get to the good stuff, but once you do it's a whole lot of frames of dancing mania and with an ending that is a genuine thrill and surprise (though all part of Melies' dated but wonderful magic tricks in general).
Horst in Translation (filmreviews@web.de)
"Le monstre" or "The Monster" is a French 2-minute short film from 1903 and the year already tells everybody that this is silent and black-and-white. And despite being almost 115 years old, you can say "only 115 years old" when it comes to Méliès as he had made many films already at this point. And looking at how experienced and prolific he was by the early 20th century, this one here is a disappointment. It's virtually impossible to understand the story. good for him if he wanted to include a plot here, but it was not a success as the audience barely could understand it. In the end, everything that stays memorable is the Sphing statue in the background. This is far from enough though and nothing better than or superior to what Méliès showed us several years earlier in terms of set decorations. I do not recommend the watch. Thumbs down.
Red-Barracuda
This little atmospheric short is about a couple of people in Egypt who are visited by a ghostly skeletal creature who rises out of a coffin that they have been transporting. Georges Méliès shows here once again that he was not only adept at visual trickery but was able to present it in an interesting way. The Egyptian setting is a nice touch and adds some exotic ambiance. The skeletal creature is manipulated in ways that are visually interesting. It dances around and is covered in sheets making it appear like a ghostly apparition. It rises high into the air and disappears into the ground. It even latterly turns into a woman. Of course, it's all very gimmicky but early films did not really tell stories at this point in history and Méliès did imbue his trick films with a definite charm. Le Monstre does sort of come off as a magician's show in many ways, but like a lot of his films it has been given a personality and the exotic flavour doesn't do it any harm at all.
Ben Parker
With an egyptian backdrop and egyptian costumes, two people enter shot, one carries a coffin. A skeleton rises out of it while the man's back is turned. The man sits the skeleton down and dresses it with some white sheets. The skeleton begins dancing around riotously! The man performs various tricks for the other figure with the skeleton, making it turn into a woman, then making the woman turn back into a skeleton. Melies was a magician and a cinema innovator. He built his own cameras and studio, and is much more a descendent of movies than the Lumieres, who were more technicians than artists. Playfulness, inventiveness and creativity abounds in Melies. Lots of fun from the most creative man in the first years of cinema, Georges Melies.
AD
