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Just what I expected

It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

It's a good bad... and worth a popcorn matinée. While it's easy to lament what could have been...

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

Not much of a plot here but visually pretty engaging. This is the second haunted castle movie. A man seems to be in a castle and there is a second figure. As the an approaches the other figure, it is transformed. One time it is a skeleton. The next it is a ghost. On and on for just a bit over a minute. Of course, the guy making the discoveries is beside himself. It never goes anywhere.

I really wasn't scared at all by this short film although unexplained occurrences (like Blair Which Project) are usually that kind of horror which I find the most intriguing. Always gives me the creeps. Anyway, this short film is still worth a watch for silent film enthusiasts, mostly for the colors used herein, especially the blinding red from the protagonists dress. We witness how the poor guy runs into ghosts, skeletons and knights as he enters the haunted castle. And when he wants to sit down to relax and calm down from all the spooky stuff going on around him, the chair vanishes as well. Oh my. This 45-second short film is another solid example of why Méliès is called the magician of early filmmakers.

Haunted Castle, The (1897) *** 1/2 (out of 4) aka Le Château hante A King (played by Melies) shows up at his new castle where he tries to sit in a chair but this chair is haunted and soon begins turning into various things including a woman and a skeleton. This is another very fun short from the famous director and once again the special effects steal the show. Throughout the entire film this one object keeps changing forms and the effects doing this are very good and the edits are hardly noticeable. It's also worth noting that the King's outfit is hand colored red throughout the film and other brief colors (all red) do appear. This one features several nice laughs throughout.

This brief trick film by Georges Méliès is very similar to his 1896 film "Le manoir du diable". Both films are often referred to by the same or similar English titles, too, such as "The Haunted Castle". But, they are different films, with no apparent connection (as in a sequel) made by the producers. The backdrop in this film seems to be a slightly redone edition of that used in "Le manoir du diable"; in addition, the same costumes were probably used in both productions. Méliès, again, plays the on-screen victim to his own substitution splices (stop substitutions) created behind the screen by also being the film's director and editor. At the end of the film, Mephistopheles reveals himself as the perpetrator of the tricks; he was also the antagonist in the other aforementioned film."La manoir du diable", although having been made before this film, is actually a bit more elaborate and longer. "Le château hanté" hurries through a series of appearances, disappearances and substitutions, ending with the revelation of Mephistopheles—all within 44 seconds and a single, stationary camera position. As with most of Méliès's films, this one was also available to be hand-colored. Fortunately, the print available today is partly hand-colored.