Le manoir du diable

The first horror film ever made — and Georges Méliès knew exactly what he was doing. In just over three minutes, a bat transforms into Mephistopheles, ghosts materialize from cauldrons, and cavaliers are tormented by an escalating parade of supernatural mischief inside a medieval castle. Méliès deploys stop-trick substitutions — the same camera magic that would define his career — to make figures appear and vanish in the blink of a cut. It plays more like a delighted magic show than a scare-fest, but make no mistake: every haunted house, every jump scare, every horror film that followed traces its lineage back to this little devil's castle.