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Waste of time

A Disappointing Continuation

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

The acting in this movie is really good.

I thought this short was very well done. It is one of the few silent films that still fascinates and intrigues today, as it is chock-full of special effects. Some of this Edwin S. Porter borrowed from Georges Melies, who made many dream films similar to this one. But I actually think Porter did a much better job here than Melies would've done and his effects are a step ahead.In this 5 minute short, a rarebit fiend (for those who don't know what that is, it's rabbit, so this guy is obsessed with cooked rabbit) gorges himself and not long after he's finished he starts hallucinating (he also had too much alcohol as well). The world spins around him (this is a simply amazing effect and looks excellent even today), and he cannot make his way home. A man helps him home where he gets in bed and starts to have terrible dreams. His bed flies through mid air above the city and he gets caught on a weather-vane. The effects all look amazing. The most well-known sequence of the movie would have to be the demons picking away at the guy's head.The whole thing is just weird and is very good for 1906. I mean, it sold 192 copies! Cool and something that is still watchable today.

Let me start off by saying that I haven't seen the Melies movies from this period to compare it to. Given that caveat I must say I found this piece of film-making to be incredibly entertaining. On Image Entertainment's box-set of Unseen Cinema this short is included with its original soundtrack played by the Edison Military Band. This music must be the most crackpot, shamelessly joyful and subversive piece ever composed. I do not think the film would be the same without it.I must say I found it very exhilarating to watch a man in a white suit and top hat spooning rarebit into his maw and down his face, slurping his porter or ale in the same mouthful. It's a glorious act of hedonism and reminds me of similar outrageous acts when I was a child (far too sensible now, sigh). For other commenters to think that this would not make him paralytic and hallucinatory is astonishing naivety. The way that he tries to hold onto a lamppost after leaving the restaurant whilst the whole world gyrates about him is an excellent portrayal of drunkenness unmatched in the judgmental and sober modern era.Just when he thinks he's made it home safe and sound to bed (ah the respite of the divan!) the whole room starts dancing, poor chap, all of us drunks have fallen for this mirage of comfort. The voyage over the city in his bed is a bit odd for me, but doesn't dampen this excellent entertainment.

Placed under the "American Surrealism" genre, apparently, this film is still a fun and very quirky look into the effects of binge drinking.It's rather absurd and silly by today's standards but the silliness lends itself to a sort of contemporary audacity not really seen in very much cinema anymore. Multiple exposures are the special effects trick of this film as the fiend goes through many harrowing experiences, my favorites including his flying over the city and the little demons pounding on his head.It never ceases to amaze me how fast cinema developed from boring and cumbersome shots of factories and people moving to narratives and special effects. Whether this film is any "good" by the standards of then or now doesn't interest me anymore. It's fun and has an air of historicalness to it that makes it worth the time.--PolarisDiB

This movie uses the basics of movie making to their maximum and that's why its just as good today.