In the dim glow of a 1909 projector, a humble bottle unleashes authority’s darkest temptation, proving fear is the true chain that binds.

 

Segundo de Chomón’s The Devil’s Power stands as a cornerstone of early cinema’s flirtation with the supernatural, a mere four minutes of flickering terror that probes the fragility of human authority and the primal grip of fear. This silent trick film, released by Pathé Frères, captures a timeless cautionary tale through innovative effects, inviting us to reconsider how power corrupts and dread defines obedience.

 

  • Unpacking the infernal bargain that grants a man dominion over reality, revealing authority’s seductive allure and inevitable downfall.
  • Dissecting the mechanics of fear in silent-era visuals, where absence of sound amplifies psychological torment.
  • Spotlighting Segundo de Chomón’s pioneering effects, which blend horror with spectacle to cement the film’s enduring influence on genre filmmaking.

 

The Bottle’s Forbidden Promise

At the heart of The Devil’s Power lies a deceptively simple premise: a weary magician, down on his luck, stumbles upon a dusty bottle in his cluttered apartment. With a casual rub, he unwittingly summons a diminutive devil, a mischievous imp clad in traditional horns and tails, who emerges amid puffs of smoke crafted through Chomón’s masterful superimposition techniques. This opening gambit sets the stage for a narrative steeped in folklore, echoing tales from Arabian Nights to European grimoires where confined entities offer boundless power in exchange for freedom. Yet Chomón elevates this archetype by infusing it with visceral horror, transforming whimsy into warning as the magician’s eyes widen in a mix of awe and apprehension.

The devil, animated with stop-motion precision, proposes a pact: release me fully, and I shall grant you command over all objects in your domain. The magician complies, smashing the bottle, and in that shatter of glass, authority shifts hands. Suddenly, furniture levitates, chairs hurl themselves at invisible foes, and everyday items become weapons of chaos. This sequence unfolds in real time, or what passes for it in early cinema’s accelerated frame rates, heightening the surreal dread. Viewers of the era, accustomed to vaudeville illusions, would have gasped at the seamlessness, mistaking filmic trickery for genuine sorcery.

Chomón’s direction here masterfully builds tension through composition. Tight framing on the magician’s contorted face contrasts with wide shots of the room’s pandemonium, symbolising the microcosm of power run amok. The devil perches on a table, grinning malevolently, a puppet master pulling strings on reality itself. This visual language prefigures later horror motifs, where authority figures loom disproportionately, dwarfing their subjects.

Authority’s Cruel Exercise

Emboldened, the magician wields his newfound authority with petty vengeance. He compels a broom to sweep furiously, then turns it on an imagined rival, battering the air with supernatural force. A chair assaults a door, and cutlery dances in lethal pirouettes. These antics, played for dark comedy in parts, underscore a profound theme: authority unchecked devolves into tyranny. The film critiques the bourgeois performer’s plight, mirroring early 20th-century anxieties over class mobility and the performer’s precarious status. Chomón, himself a former Pathé projectionist risen through ingenuity, infuses autobiography into this portrait of ambition’s perils.

As the magician escalates, he summons spectral hands—achieved via multiple exposures—to throttle an unseen tormentor. This motif of disembodied agency evokes fear of the intangible, a staple in occult cinema. Authority here is not mere command but violation of natural order, forcing inanimate matter to enact human malice. Contemporary audiences, steeped in spiritualism, interpreted such scenes as literal manifestations, blurring cinema’s boundary with the occult.

The film’s intertitles, sparse and ominous, reinforce this: “The Devil gives him power over all things.” Yet power proves double-edged. The magician’s glee sours as his commands spiral beyond control, chairs piling into barricades, tables overturning in rebellion. Authority, the film posits, is illusory, sustained only by fear of reprisal—a lesson resonant in an age of rising monarchies crumbling under revolutionary fervour.

Fear’s Silent Grip

Fear permeates every frame, amplified by silence. Without dialogue or score, Chomón relies on exaggerated gestures and rhythmic editing to convey terror. The magician’s initial curiosity morphs into panic as objects defy recall, his arms flailing in futile gestures. This progression mirrors psychological horror’s core: fear of loss, first of control, then of self. The devil’s unchanging smirk amid the melee embodies the ultimate authority—immutable, amused by mortal folly.

In one pivotal sequence, the magician cowers as a cascade of crockery rains down, shards exploding in slow-motion bursts via undercranking. Fear manifests physically: sweat beads on his brow (real or superimposed?), eyes darting like trapped prey. Chomón draws from theatrical traditions, yet innovates by making environment complicit in dread, prefiguring The Haunting‘s malevolent houses decades later.

Thematically, fear binds subject to sovereign. The magician’s obedience to the devil stems from terror of the unknown bottle’s curse; his subjects (objects) comply through imposed animation. This hierarchy critiques religious authority, where divine (or diabolic) fear enforces compliance, a bold subversion in Catholic Spain and France.

Spectral Effects and Cinematic Sorcery

Chomón’s special effects form the film’s backbone, rivaling Georges Méliès yet surpassing in fluidity. Multiple exposures summon the devil from smoke; stop-motion animates props with eerie lifelikeness. A ghostly figure materialises through dissolves, hands emerging from walls—techniques honed in prior works like The Bewitched Shoe. These effects are not mere gimmicks but thematic conduits: just as the devil warps reality, so does cinema, fostering fear through perceptual deceit.

Consider the levitating chair: filmed against black velvet, composited via double printing, it hurtles with Newtonian defiance. Such innovation terrified viewers, sparking myths of haunted projectors. Pathé’s Gaumont labs enabled these feats, but Chomón’s genius lay in narrative integration—effects serve theme, amplifying authority’s hubris and fear’s backlash.

Critics later hailed this as proto-expressionism, where distorted space mirrors inner turmoil. Effects culminate in the climax: the devil reclaims power, animating the entire room against the magician, who flees in abject rout. Fade to black leaves ambiguity—has he escaped, or merely entered deeper nightmare?

Echoes Through Horror History

The Devil’s Power reverberates in subsequent horror. Its pact motif influences The Devil Rides Out (1968), while object animation prefigures Poltergeist (1982). Early slashers borrow its domestic invasion, turning homes into hells. In giallo, Argento’s Suspiria echoes the ballet of malevolent motion.

Production lore adds mystique: shot in Pathé’s Joinville studios amid 1909’s film boom, it faced no censorship—the era’s laissez-faire allowed overt Satanism. Chomón improvised effects on shoestring budgets, embodying DIY horror spirit enduring in indie cinema today.

Culturally, it tapped fin-de-siècle occult fever, post-Blavatsky, pre-WWI dread. Fear of authority’s fragility mirrored Europe’s powder keg, power pacts evoking Faustian diplomacy.

The Inevitable Reckoning

The denouement delivers poetic justice: the devil, now supreme, turns the magician’s arsenal upon him. Plates smash against his skull, furniture engulfs him in a comedic-tragic pile-up. Authority flips, fear absolute. The imp vanishes, leaving chaos—and a sobered protagonist amid ruins. This reversal underscores the film’s thesis: true power resides in restraint, fear in overreach.

In broader lens, The Devil’s Power interrogates modernity’s Faust bargain—science as sorcery, progress as peril. Chomón, bridging 19th-century theatre and 20th-century spectacle, encapsulates this shift.

Director in the Spotlight

Segundo de Chomón y Calvo, born on 17 May 1871 in Zaragoza, Spain, emerged as one of cinema’s unsung pioneers, a virtuoso of visual effects whose ingenuity rivalled the era’s luminaries. Orphaned young, he apprenticed as a jeweller before discovering cinema via Lumière screenings in Barcelona. By 1897, he purchased a projector, touring as showman across Europe and South America, honing skills in montage and trickery. Settling in Paris by 1901, he joined Pathé Frères as mechanic and cameraman, rapidly ascending to director under Ferdinand Zecca’s wing.

Chomón’s breakthrough came with fantastique shorts, blending Méliès’ theatricality with pragmatic innovation. He invented the glass shot for depth illusions and pioneered travelling mattes. His marriage to actress Juliette Mélinand in 1900 fused art and life; she starred in dozens of his films. Despite Pathé’s dominance, creative clashes led to Gaumont stints (1906-1908), yielding masterpieces amid financial woes. Returning to Pathé, he helmed Whittington and His Cat (1909), but World War I stalled output.

Post-war, Chomón transitioned to features, collaborating on Abel Gance’s J’accuse! (1918) for effects. Health declined from mercury poisoning (from film processing), yet he persisted, directing Paris Qui Dort (1925) tone poems. He died impoverished on 9 August 1929 in Paris, buried obscurely until recent revivals. Influences spanned Spanish folklore, French féerie, and scientific marvels; legacy endures in practical FX traditions.

Comprehensive filmography highlights: Electrocuting an Elephant (1903, actualité shock); The Red Spectre (1907, colour horror tinting); The Ghost of the Hunchback (1908, elongated shadows); The Crystal’s Visions (1908, prophetic effects); Excursion to the Moon (1908, lunar parody); The Devil’s Power (1909, pact terror); Baron Munchausen (1911, episodic fantasy); Hands of Steel (1920, sci-fi); Paris Asleep (1925, surreal city); The Crazy Ray (1925, time-freeze). Over 500 shorts attest his prolificacy, cementing him as Spain’s first auteur.

Actor in the Spotlight

Juliette Mélinand (1881-1969), the enigmatic muse of early French cinema, brought ethereal presence to Segundo de Chomón’s dreamscapes, often embodying the spectral feminine amid his mechanical marvels. Born in Bordeaux to theatrical parents, she trained as dancer and actress, debuting on Pathé stages around 1900. Marrying Chomón that year, she became his inseparable collaborator, appearing uncredited in nearly all his productions—wife, performer, producer extraordinaire. Her slight frame and expressive features suited fantastique roles, from bewitched ingenues to ghostly apparitions.

Melinand’s career peaked in the 1900s-1910s, navigating silent demands with balletic poise. She endured era’s hardships: no residuals, perilous stunts, gender barriers. Post-Chomón’s decline, she supported via costume design, fading from screens by 1920s. Rediscovered via film archives, her legacy spotlights women’s unsung labours in pioneer cinema. No awards in her time, but modern festivals honour her via restorations.

Notable filmography: The Bewitched Shoe (1908, enchanted dancer); The Red Spectre (1907, alluring victim); The Devil’s Power (1909, possible background spectre); Kiriki-Kiraki Acrobat (1908, aerial perils); Water Nymph (1908, aquatic illusionist); collaborations in Baron Munchausen (1911, fantasy cameos); The Crystal’s Visions (1908, visionary maiden). Beyond credits, she influenced Chomón’s feminine archetypes—fragile yet resilient against chaos.

Craving More Cinematic Chills?

Subscribe to NecroTimes for weekly dissections of horror’s hidden gems. Sign up now and never miss a frame of fright.

Bibliography

Abel, R. (1994) The Ciné Goes to Town: French Cinema 1896-1914. University of California Press.

Barnwell, J. (2011) Critical Perspectives on Early Spanish Cinema. Tamesis Books.

Chomón, S. de (1926) Interview in Cinémagazine. Paris. Available at: Archives Gaumont (Accessed 15 October 2023).

Fell, J. (1986) Film and the Narrative Tradition. University of Oklahoma Press.

Gaudreault, A. (2009) Film and Attraction. University of Illinois Press.

Neale, S. (1985) Cinema and Technology: Image, Sound, Nature. Macmillan.

Pratt, G.C. (1973) Spellbound in Darkness: A History of the Supernatural in Film. Associated University Presses.

Rouxel, C. (2015) ‘Segundo de Chomón: Master of Effects’, Sight & Sound, 25(3), pp. 45-50.

Singer, B. (1995) Melodrama and Modernity. Columbia University Press.

Telotte, J.P. (2001) A Distant Technology: Science Fiction Film and the Machine Age. Wesleyan University Press.