Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2024/06/28/1896s-the-house-of-the-devil-was-the-first-horror-film.html
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Not to be confused with the fabulous Ti West film of the same name, which came out in 2009 but nails the tone of a seventies thriller. Features Greta Gerwig as “the best friend”.
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Contributed by Popkin
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I’d say it’s extremely recognizable as a horror movie. In fact, what’s funny is how little has changed for the genre. Sure, everything is reduced to the most basic possible story elements here, but you could look at any segment of the film, and there’s a modern horror movie plot being described in its roughest outline.
A twenty second bit of it in particular really struck me: Man in spooky house is charmed by beautiful lady. Uh oh, she’s a ghost. Now there are more ghosts. They’re also witches. Because I’m pretty sure that was a Lucio Fulci movie I saw. (Those first two sentences alone describe an uncountable number of horror movies.) There’s a whole wing of modern horror movies that are nothing more than elaborations of bits of this film.
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Also, timestamp 1:40 is widely regarded as the first jumpscare.
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