Watch Uncle Josh's Nightmare For Free

If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

True to its essence, the characters remain on the same line and manage to entertain the viewer, each highlighting their own distinctive qualities or touches.

Uncle Josh (Charles Manley) was one of the first film character stars--as he appeared three times in Edison films. In this installment, Uncle Josh is being bedeviled by Satan--who keeps appearing and disappearing in his room. Eventually, Uncle Josh becomes so frustrated, he knocks the Devil out, ties him up and stuffs him into a hope chest! Now considering this IS the Prince of Darkness, this seems like too easy a solution and you can watch this to see if Josh prevails.This is a cute little film--probably the best of the Uncle Josh films. While the movie isn't brilliant, it makes nice use of stop-motion and is kind of funny. Not one to rush to see but worth it for cinemaniacs who love very early cinema.

This chaotic but fairly funny feature was a pioneering effort in its camera effects. One of the first special effect devices that film-makers learned was the stop-action technique of creating visual illusions, and this movie is pretty much devoted to experimenting with that idea. The editing is quite choppy, and the camera effects here are not going to look smooth or impressive now, of course, but this was one of the earliest films to use them. If you can make allowance for the rudimentary technique, it's amusing enough.The actual story is pretty simple, starting out with "Uncle Josh's Nightmare" about a battle with a demon. Mostly of it is just unrefined slapstick, and it would have looked a lot better with even slightly more refined technique, but it does well enough given its limitations. The 'Uncle Josh' character was popular enough that he was re-used in a couple of other films by the same production company.

The first example I knowof where one certain character comes back in multiple sequels. Edison's "Uncle Josh" character certainly had a bad time of it but his misadventures make for comedic films that are still enjoyable to-day a century later. In this one Uncle Josh simply wants a good nights sleep but of course he gets none. His nightshirt has a life of its own and jumps around the room, his bed vamishes into thin air only to reappear in another corner; and then someone who might be The Devil himself pops up to insure there is no rest for the weary! Okay so the special effects were inspired by the films of Georges Melies. In fact this whole short looks similar to the Melies film THE INN WHERE NO MAN RESTS but it is still fun. Josh would be back again in two more films.

There isn't much to this piece of early cinema. It is basically a novelty film that employs stop-motion editing to have objects appear or disappear from the scene. In many instances, the editing is so obvious that one can't help but laugh. However, it is this quality that makes this film slightly entertaining to watch, if only to see how far cinema has advanced in the last 100+ years.