How sad is this?

An Exercise In Nonsense

It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

Like many of the classic films of Georges Méliès, 'Bluebeard' is groundbreaking, surprising, and filled with fun camera tricks and special effects magic, and it is also, no doubt, one of his darkest films. It's one of the earliest horror films ever made, and it gets pretty wild, particularly towards the end in which Méliès just fills the screen with action and suspense and special effects and death and ghosts and so on and so on. The first portion of the film is actually fairly comedic, which makes how bizarre and tense it gets later on all the more surprising, shocking, and uniquely amusing/entertaining. Much of the comedy is in the common vaudevillian and slapstick vein Méliès's films, whether they be science fiction, romance, fantasy, etc., often indulge in. It helps set a tone that is harshly shifted by the end in a very enjoyable and fun way. Of course, it gets better once it becomes a full blown horror film. Images of hanging women and keys that grow and shrink and spirits and an extremely energetic devil come and go and it's surreal and extremely impressive for the time. Méliès experiments with the overlaying of images atop other images, an effect we now take very much for granted, in a very thrilling nightmare sequence, and the jump cut tricks and theatrical bursts of smoke are very much in the vein of many of Méliès's other fantastical shorts.

Arguably, the first bona-fide horror film ever made. The scene where the wife goes to the cellar and finds the hanged bodies of the previous wives is genuinely chilling, and the eerie dream scene is very well done.There is really no exaggerating of Georges Méliès' importance in the history of cinema, inventor of special effects, an early expressionist before expressionism even officially existed, a wizard creator of magical worlds, a canny surrealist a full two decades before surrealism was even born, a trickster and relentless comedian that knows no bounds: more than an innovator, Méliès is a genius.

Bluebeard is one of Georges Melies' most fascinating films not just in the depiction of how the title character lost his first seven wives but also in a fascinating dream sequence involving keys and vision of those wives from his current one. Melies also became the first filmmaker to use product placement when we see a giant wine bottle of a popular French brand during the wedding preparation. There's lots of comedy in the beginning and plenty of action at the end so there's no shortage of excitement in this nine minute short! Melies was obviously on a roll here but it would be a year before he became world famous with what would be his most popular film: A Trip to the Moon. By all means seek Bluebeard out if you're a Melies enthusiast!

This lavish, well-crafted version of the legend of "Bluebeard" also contains plenty of distinctive touches from the great cinema pioneer Georges Méliès. He must have enjoyed making this story, which offers a good variety of material, and to which he added his own richly detailed background sets and special camera effects.The first half of the story begins with Bluebeard about to be married for the eighth time, and while this part has none of the special effects for which Méliès is usually remembered, it's pretty good without them. The backgrounds are quite interesting, and there is a funny banquet preparation scene that combines wit and slapstick. The second half focuses on the grimmer part of the well-known legend, and in this part there are plenty of good visual effects to go with the story itself.As was often the case with his movies, especially in his earlier years, Méliès planned for a spoken narration to accompany this when it was shown. Actually, the movie is probably good enough that most of it could probably stand on its own, with the possible exception of portions of the earlier scenes. The DVD release does have the narration, which makes sure that you don't miss any of the detail in this imaginative version of the story.