Les quatre cents farces du diable

Inventive but not really entertaining. A lot of the effects seemed a bit sloppy and not up to Georges Méliès' best work.

Not much of a frolic. Dated, silly, and very dull

There's a lot of modern-day comparisons I could make with this Faust-like story. The inventions seem to come right out of Rube Goldberg. Even the "servant" character seems to foreshadow Harpo Marx. And Melies would reuse a part of the haunted house segment later in The Diabolic Tenant. The odd acrobatic devils weren't my thing, but it's clear: this guy had an overload of imagination.

Ehhhh

Cool stuff. Love the skeleton horse.

So this rating is almost entirely for the visual inventiveness on display. The story is barely coherent, and as such the drama is almost non-existent. However, the shifts in location, changes in space, and just the general sense of playfulness and creativity on display made this enjoyable from beginning to end--even if it is something of a tragedy!