For today’s blast from the past, we have a film that has often been described as being France’s first horror film.

The Monster is 2-minute silent film from 1903.  Directed by the pioneering French filmmaker, Georges Méliès, The Monster tells the story of an Egyptian prince who brings the dead body of his wife to a sorcerer who apparently likes to hang out in front of The Sphinx.  The sorcerer attempts to bring her back to life and, as so often happens in any film directed by Georges Méliès, things don’t quite go as planned.

In my opinion, this is one of the most charming of Georges Méliès’s surviving films.  From the simple but crudely effective camera trickery to the nicely surreal Sphinx in the background, The Monster is a chaotic delight.