Review #20: Les quatre cents farces du diable (1906) - Short film

Also known as The 400 Tricks of the Devil and The Merry Frolics of Satan, Les quatre cents farces du diable is another film by Georges Méliès. I reviewed one film by him already, but this one is a bit more extensive, clocking in at nearly 17 minutes. Though not totally horror, it does have a pretty well-known sequence which is very horror-esque. 

Source: YouTube

Length: 17 minutes

Number of Ratings from IMDb: 292

Country of Origin: France

Director: Georges Méliès [Le manoir du diable, Le château hanté, Barbe-bleue, Le monstre, Le chaudron infernal, Les quatre cents farces du diable]

The story is pretty simple: two people, wherever they go, are followed and tormented playfully by demons (I say playfully, as the audience may see it that way, but in actuality, it'd be pretty pestering). Below, the Devil himself is congratulating his demon horde for successfully scaring these two men out of another hotel room.

On their way to another hotel, the men lose some luggage, but arrive safely. At first, the owner of the establishment in question seems rather welcoming; that is, until after the two men enter the room, and he transforms into the Devil, and calls two demons from a nearby well to go terrorize them.

The same happens in this hotel room that happened in the other - they are scared out. This time, however, the Devil has another trick for them. Once they get in a carriage parked in front, it transforms into a hellish wagon pulled by a skeletal horse, and he takes them for a ride they won't soon forget.

Eventually, the two men fall out of the carriage, and land in another room. Thinking they're finally safe, the Devil pops up and takes one of the men specifically, and drags him down to Hell, where we can assume he does not escape from.

Les quatre cents farces du diable strikes me as the type of film that could have been much better if it had just one more scene in it. If, at the beginning of the film, one of the men being hunted was shown either drinking, or whoring, or killing a man, it would give the Devil justification for going through these lengths to obtain him. Instead of just being a more playful film, it could have been a morality tale, showing the dire consequences of sinning. It's not the route that was taken, however, and because of that, the final product seems far more less menacing than it had to be.

Of course, because this is Méliès, some scenes in this are absolutely striking, even nowadays. He had such an interesting special effects design, and many of his own tricks are pretty dang cool. That said, this is really a typical, albeit slightly more lengthy, Méliès fair, and as such, I'd really only recommend it to fans of his, or fans of silent horror films in general. 

My rating: 6/10

IMDb page

- Michael