(computer typing)
- [Narrator] If you're anything like us,
you don't find yourself getting particularly
frightened by old horror movies.
Look at these (beep)-holes.
A movie about walking to 7-Eleven by yourself
would be more terrifying.
Okay, he looks pretty suspicious.
Hollywood isn't exactly telling
the most bone-chilling tales these days either.
10 hours of footage of a producer's empty mansion,
ghosts you can literally throw in the trash,
and this horse (beep).
- (in rough voice) The bye bye man.
- [Narrator] You might be asking yourself, man,
did we ever know how to make a scary movie?
Well the answer to that question is
a loud, richly baritone yes
because, if you go back to the early days of cinema,
you'll find some truly horrifying works of film,
many of which, it is important to note,
were scary by accident.
Here's the "Execution of Mary Stewart" released in 1895.
That was a year in which film was so new
that most people were sufficiently entertained
by watching soundless footage of trains
and people riding gigantic bicycles.
But Thomas Edison decided to go straight
for the torture porn because he, among many other things,
was a big, whistling (beep)-hole.
Edison hired a director, gathered a bunch of actors,
and recreated the 1587 beheading of Mary Stewart
from start to uncensored head-rolling finish.
The 18-second film actually features the first trick edit
at the moment when the actress playing Mary
is replaced with a mannequin.
Normally, we wouldn't bother pointing out
that a movie didn't actually kill one of its actors,
but, when you're talking about a movie produced
by a guy who was absolutely willing
to publicly execute animals in order to sell his inventions,
that's a welcome asterisk.
L'Inferno was Italy's earliest feature-length movie,
and it mostly takes place in hell
because they didn't want anyone to actually enjoy it.
This movie came out before World War I,
and it's full of some truly wild (beep),
including a naked man carrying his own head
like a bag full of poop,
people buried up to their necks in the ground,
and this (beep)-hole just ripping their hair out,
and demons just wailing on a bunch
of horrified naked people.
They didn't ask to be here, guys.
You act like they stole from you.
The final image of this movie is a huge
three-mouthed Satan sitting on the horizon,
presumably overseeing the events of the film,
while chewing on the bodies of two hapless bastards.
Look at him go.
Weird they couldn't find people for his other mouths.
Some movies like to save their most shocking scenes
for the end, but those movies are not The Man Who Laughs,
which opens with a nobleman being sentenced to death
in an Iron Maiden while his son Gwynplaine
is given surgery to force his face into
a grotesque permanent smile.
That's some weirdly specific justice being dispensed there.
While we are clearly meant to sympathize with him,
it doesn't help that he is smiling
like an undead maniac for the entire movie.
Just look at this goddamn ghoul.
I can't have tears for you, man.
As you may have guessed, Batman's arch nemesis, The Joker,
was actually based on Gwynplaine,
who in turn was based on the director's hatred
of peaceful, dreamless sleep.
1933's The Peanut Vendor is a stark reminder
of a bygone era in which child abuse
was an acceptable form of children's entertainment.
The star of this experimental short
is a pipe-cleaner-monkey puppet singing along
to an uptempo Jazz number while simultaneously
daring anyone who looks at him to continue believing in God.
The director is said to have based the puppet's movements
on his wife's dancing, making this one of the most
circuitous cries for help in recorded history.
He was either married to a reanimated skeleton
or psychological terror is a dance you can do
and we didn't know it existed.
Based on an Edgar Allen Poe story, the 1936 short
Il Caso Valdemar deals with a man who wants to find out
what happens if a dying person is put under hypnosis.
He picks his good pal Valdemar,
who is dying of tuberculosis,
a disease you may recognize as being the closest thing
to a retirement package that they offered in those days.
Pretty low bar for hypnotism, too.
The whole operation is suspect.
Anyway, once the experiment is over,
the hypnotist tries to bring his buddy back to life.
Unfortunately, as soon as Valdemar comes out
of his hypnotic state, he speed rots into a skeleton
like he drank from the false grail.
- He chose...
poorly.
- [Narrator] It is unclear why this happens, it just does
because every reel of film from pre-war Europe
is absolutely haunted.
Hopefully he didn't mark this experiment down as a success
because, buddy, you are inflating your numbers.
(static)