Purely Joyful Movie!

Absolutely Fantastic

There's a more than satisfactory amount of boom-boom in the movie's trim running time.

If you're interested in the topic at hand, you should just watch it and judge yourself because the reviews have gone very biased by people that didn't even watch it and just hate (or love) the creator. I liked it, it was well written, narrated, and directed and it was about a topic that interests me.

"Le monstre" or "The Monster" is a French 2-minute short film from 1903 and the year already tells everybody that this is silent and black-and-white. And despite being almost 115 years old, you can say "only 115 years old" when it comes to Méliès as he had made many films already at this point. And looking at how experienced and prolific he was by the early 20th century, this one here is a disappointment. It's virtually impossible to understand the story. good for him if he wanted to include a plot here, but it was not a success as the audience barely could understand it. In the end, everything that stays memorable is the Sphing statue in the background. This is far from enough though and nothing better than or superior to what Méliès showed us several years earlier in terms of set decorations. I do not recommend the watch. Thumbs down.

This is another typically macabre little number from visionary French pioneer Georges Melies which, while head and shoulders above the work of most of his contemporaries, is fairly inconsequential when compared to much of his output from the same year. It's a one-scene shot set against the sphinxes of Egypt and features the resurrection of a dead princess at the behest of an Egyptian prince. The princess's skeleton is removed from her coffin and brought to life by a magician. Shrouded in veils, she dances around manically for a while, performing unnatural contortions before turning back into a skeleton when her lovelorn prince attempts to kiss her. Enjoyable enough, but only average for Melies.

Monster, The (1903) *** (out of 4) aka Monstre, Le This here seems to be an early take on the Frankenstein story and was made seven years before Edison's official version. An Egyptian prince has recently lost his wife so he brings a man with her coffin to try and bring her from the dead. This is a fun little film that Melies manages to bring a lot of his magic to the screen as well as an overall playful attitude. When they pull the skeleton out of the coffin and start doing their magic, the skeleton begins to dance in a very playful matter before the Prince tries to her one final kiss. The magic tricks are pretty good with the last one being the best where the Prince goes to give his wife a kiss but something goes wrong. The back of the stage is done up in an Egyptian manor and looks quite nice. Fans of the horror genre will certainly want to check this one out since there are various early horror elements. The film includes spoken narration.

While this movie is very creative and clever in its use of trick cinematography when compared to other contemporary films, it is a lesser film from Méliès because compared to his other films of the time (particularly Le Voyage Dans le Lune), it is not particularly outstanding.An Egyptian misses his dead sweetheart and gets a strange holy man to revive her from the dead. Using only her skeleton, he produces some strange effects and ultimately the live girl. But, the joy is very, very short-lived and the final scene is pretty clever as she is "magically" returned to her skeletal state. Very interesting and breezy, this film is well worth your time--particularly if you are a fan of the earliest films.If you want to see this film online, go to Google and type in "Méliès" and then click the video button for a long list of his films that are viewable without special software.