Happy Halloween! - horror films from the silent era.

For my Halloween post I thought I would focus on some early horror films.

Here's a good introduction the the genre.

http://www.filmsite.org/horrorfilms.html

Many of you may be familiar with the French director Georges Melies, whose pioneering films include "A Trip to the Moon" (1902). His directed the very first horror film, "Le Manior du Diable",from 1896.

Here is a brief excerpt, with modern narration.




Three more by Melies:











The first version of Frankenstein was filmed by Edison Studios in 1910. The quality is poor in places, There is only one known surviving copy, and it remained unseen by all except for its owner for many years.



http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0001223/

Here is F.W. Murnaus's 1922 film "Nosferatu", the first filmed version of the Dracula legend. Murnau was successfully sued by Bram Stoker's widow for copyright infringement.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F._W._Murnau





There are several very interesting films from the silent era here.


http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=91D988B577595EA6&page=1



This is a great bibliography of horror films, from 1895-1950

http://www.classichorror.free-online.co.uk/azmovies.htm

I will discuss the Carl Dreyer film "Vampyr" in a separate post on Dreyer.