Review #4: The Execution of Mary, Queen of Scots (1895) - Short film

At only 18 seconds long, I feel this is extremely important in the history of horror films. I say that for one reason: I strongly believe this to be the first horror film ever made.

Many save that distinction for the film Le manoir du diable, which came out the following year, but ever since I've first seen The Execution of Mary, it's stuck with me. This is the true first horror movie ever made, and I think, after watching it, that it's pretty apparent.

Source: YouTube

Length: 18 seconds

Number of Ratings from IMDb: 744

Country of Origin: USA

Director: Alfred Clark [The Execution of Mary, Queen of Scots]

As you can see, this is from 1895. The copy I've consistently seen has been grainy, and somewhat hard at times to make out arms and legs of the two main characters. But it's from 1895 - almost 120 years old - so you really shouldn't complain about something like that. We are able to view cinematic history when we see that, and I do not take that lightly.

The plot is simple, which makes sense, given the limited time. A woman is being led up to a wooden block to place her head on, preparing for her execution. Why? Because she committed treason against the crown. I won't get into the historical facts of Mary Stuart, but if you are so inclined to read more, you can start here.

So the Queen is brought up to here death, and places her head down, awaiting the end.

Though no doubt hard to see, in the picture above, the executioner has his ax raised, and is about to execute Stuart.

In this picture, you may be able to see her body (without a head) sink down, and the head starts to fall immediately afterwards (not pictured).

The last portion is the part which I find the most morbid: The executioner picks up her and raises it, as if to say, "The Queen is no more." Unfortunately, I was unable to get a good image of this (yes, it was worse than the two images above, even), but you should be able to see it perfectly should you take the 20 seconds out of your day to open a browser and watch this piece of history.

I am passionate about this short, as you may be able to tell. It's not obscure by any means, but it is overlooked by almost everyone I've spoken to about the history of horror films. Everyone talks about The Devil's Castle (the English name of the aforementioned 1896 film), but they either are unaware of this film, or claim it to be an historical film, hence it's not horror.

Personally, I feel such a statement is a sad folly. We see in this film a woman's head being cut off (very good effects for the time, I must add), and the newly-decapitated head being risen akin to a trophy. If this isn't horror, I'm unsure what it. More so, unlike most of the horror shorts that would litter 1886-1910, this one is not light-hearted. There are no comedic undertones here. The movie is not one of jovial nature. It is cruel, as history oft is.

A few interesting notes about this film:

I've read from a few different sources that this may be one of the first films to used trained actors, which is quite believable, and more so, only strengthens the importance of this short on the whole of cinema.

Secondly, here is a note from the trivia section on IMDb. I am not sure how accurate it is, but I would not be surprised whatsoever if it were.

The execution was so real to audiences that some believed a woman actually gave her life for the beheading scene.

I can easily see this, because even at 1895, the idea of short films was still very new to many people. The special effects, which may very well be laughable today, probably seemed immensely real to the folks at the time. Also, I find it amusing that it differentiates between the beheading scene and the rest of the short - the whole movie is the beheading scene.

This film is just amazing. I know it may not seem like much, but every time I watch it, I just think to myself that "this movie created the whole horror sub-genre," and that's quite a good feeling.

My rating: 10/10


Thanks for reading, and may this find you well.

The IMDb page can be found here.



Next time, on Beyond the Darkened Door:

We delve back into obscurity, with a 2002 short film rated by a stunningly-low six people despite being readily available on IMDb itself. Until then.