Legend of a Ghost

La legende du fantome (1908) *** (out of 4) This French film from the now forgotten de Chomon certainly has a visual style all its own and is clearly one of the earliest examples of a pure horror film. I'm really not sure what the story is about as there aren't any title cards and I'm going to guess that original this movie played with some sort of narration like many of the Georges Melies films from this era. What we basically have is 13-minutes of a Demonmobile driving around to various locations where other demonic forces are seen. These images include a large frog, various grim reapers, other sea creatures and of course ghosts. It's hard to judge the film without knowing what type of story it's trying to tell but at the same time there's no question that the visuals alone are great enough to keep you entertained from start to finish. The sight of this Demonmobile is rather fun throughout even though it's obviously fake. There are several special effects in the film and most of them are handled quite nicely, although none of them ever reach the greatness of what you'd see in a Melies film. Like many films from this period the "animals" are played by humans in costumes but I must admit that the frogs were terrific as were the other creatures that show up in a scene towards the end of the movie. The one area where this goes beyond a Melies production is in its visual style because every frame of this film has the image full of terrific visuals. The opening with the girls running around with the fireworks was terrific and it's clear that the director wanted something going on at all times. LEGEND OF A GHOST was just recently rediscovered and it deserves the recognition it's gotten.