Le Chaudron infernal

This is an awesome, old little short. Its pretty funny watching these crazy blue demons guys boil a bunch of random people and extract their souls. Pretty gruesome for its age, don't you think?

The way the blue demon guys dance around and gesture is hilarious.

This film, "The Infernal Caldron" is a single-scene trick film by Georges Méliès, who made many such subjects, which creatively exploited cinematic techniques, mostly substitution splices and multiple-exposure photography. This film is the earliest one that I recall where the filmmaker used multiple exposures to create such indistinguishable ghostly images. I know that he had made ghosts or spirits with the technique before, such as in "A Fantastical Meal" (1900), as had other early filmmakers, but those ghosts that I've seen are distinguished as human looking—only fainter or more transparent in appearance than the living. The trick for the blurry ghost blobs in "The Infernal Caldron" was to alter the lens to go out of focus for their exposure. Méliès repeated the trick for his next film, "Apparitions" (Le Revenant)(1903).

Additionally, this particular trick film remains appealing today because it's available in a vibrant hand-colored print. The color especially aids in making the fire red, as well as bringing attention to the décor and costumes. In the film, the director plays a demon who places people in a cauldron. The out-of-focus spirits fly out of the cauldron and then transform into fireballs. There are quite a few macabre little pictures among Méliès's surviving films, but this is one of my favorites.

P.S. Many, if not most, of Méliès's films were offered to be hand-painted for exhibitors (for an additional fee). Most films from this era are lost, and many of the films that do survive and that were in color have lost their paint over time or only remain in prints that weren't colorized. An all-female staff headed by a Madame Thullier, reportedly, provided the color for all such Star Films, from 1896 or 1897 to 1910, as well as for other French studios. The coloring was done manually in an assembly-line procedure, film-by-film, frame-by-frame, with each laborer specializing in a certain color. Otherwise, some fairground exhibitors may have colored their own prints to cut costs. Later, Pathé's stencil process made coloring easier and more consistent (main source: Frazer, "Artificially Arranged Scenes").

Melies' typically lively imagination is once again evident here as he treats us to a macabre little scene in which a couple of demons capture unfortunate souls and bundle them into the eponymous cauldron only to then summon their spirits. The film is hand-coloured and is still in remarkably good condition, and Melies' trademark special effects are up to his usual standard - in fact they can stand comparison with the special effects in movies made 70 years later. There's not much plot, but then plot was never the most important thing to Melies - he was more concerned with visualising his incredible imagination on the screen. This one is a real treat.

"The Infernal Cauldron" a 1903 little 2 min short film is odd a unique exercise in something bad or the cult if you want to call it in that type of way. Simple and to the point inside of a gothic and mid evil like castle three women are sacrificed by demons by being put into a boiling pot and burned. And in the aftermath their spirits form into ghost clouds! Certainly nothing compared to legendary horror classics of the 70's and 80's still it was a different and to the point concept of evil, souls, and spirits. As many watchers of old classic silent films would enjoy watching as without dialogue you the viewer form your own thoughts and feelings!

Infernal Boiling Pot, The (1903)

*** (out of 4)

aka Chaudron infernal, Le

One of the director's most popular films features two demons kidnapping people and throwing them into a boiling pot of water so that the demons can steal their souls. This hand colored film is a real joy and contains all the magic and playfulness that has made the director a legend. It's easy to see why this would be one of the director's most popular films because the special effects are terrific even after all these years. When the spirits begin to fly through the air, these scenes look great as does the finale when the spirits go up in flames. The film runs just over a minute but contains plenty of nice laughs and it's a real treat for the eyes. The coloring done here is also very good and manages to add a lot to the film especially those red flames that are constantly coming up.