Le manoir du diable

Méliès, Star Film 78-80, late 1896 (or early 1897), Théâtre Robert-Houdin. A bat enters a castle hall and becomes Mephistopheles; skeletons, witches, and a cauldron appear by substitution splice, and a crucifix ends the act. About three minutes, 60 metres, with Jehanne d'Alcy among the phantoms. Méliès meant a comic féerie, not a scare, though historians often cite it as an early horror sketch. A print thought lost turned up in 1988 at the New Zealand Film Archive (Ngā Taonga).