Le Cauchemar

Silly and slightly scary, Méliès's somewhat minor one minute short 'A Nightmare' fits perfectly in with the rest of his filmography. It's a trick film, a comedy, a fantasy, a portrayal of a dream, and something of a horror film, if not in any conventional sense, all of which are genres/styles of film that Méliès so often loved to explore. The strange giant head that appears somewhere around the middle of this minute is simultaneously amusing and successfully creepy (and remains so to this day), add to that a cast of characters that includes an energetically dancing and mischievous clown and you have a film that gives off an atmosphere dominated by both humour and uneasiness.