I’ve never made any secret out of the fact that I’m a hopeless silent movie geek. As we get closer to Halloween Balladeer’s Blog will examine the greatest silent horror films of all but for this little teaser I’ll take a look at the best silent horror shorts from 1896 to 1909.
THE HOUSE OF THE DEVIL (1896) – Unless an earlier example turns up this is the very first horror movie with a semblance of a story. This 3 minute film from THE Georges Melies features the Devil setting up housekeeping in a creepy mansion and conjuring up his infernal lackeys like witches, goblins and a living skeleton man to keep him company. Much as the early film world owes to Melies we all know if you’ve seen one of his flicks you’ve seen them all so this will be the last work by him that I cover for this list. His camera trickery and broad characters get old REALLY fast.
FAUST AND MEPHISTOPHELES (1898) – George A Smith, a British stage magician, presents this very brief depiction of Faust selling his soul to the devil named Mephistopheles.
THE MISER’S DOOM (1899) – Like an 1899 Twilight Zone episode this Walter Booth short features a clutching, grasping miser getting his comeuppance in the form of a fatal encounter with a woman’s ghost.
THE FREAK BARBER (1905) – In a sort of “Extreme Sweeney Todd” story a mad barber decapitates his customers until the tables are turned and he himself gets his head chopped off in the finale. 3 minutes of weirdness.
THE THIRTEEN CLUB (1905) – A group of Continue reading
BLACK NOON (1971) – Roy Thinnes stars as an old west preacher who falls in with a coven of witches in the town of Melas (Salem spelled backwards of course). 
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