From Horror Movie To Horror Comic: The House Of The Devil (1896)

Posted on July 14, 2025 by bloodlinematt

Welcome back to Rotten Ink. As you can see, there is a chill in the air and that must mean that we find ourselves at another “From Horror Movie To Horror Comic” update. This one will be about what is considered by many to be not only the first horror movie of all time but also the first vampire film, and I am of course talking about the 1896 short film The House Of The Devil that was directed by the amazing Georges Méliès, considered to be the godfather of cinema special effects and who brought his magic skills and creative mind to early cinema. In 2023 Blood Scream Comics released a comic book about House Of The Devil as part of their Silent Universe, and both the short film and the comic are the topic of this update. Like always, because of my connection to Blood Scream Comics, I will not be giving this comic a star rating, but I truly think House Of The Devil needs to get the Rotten Ink treatment. So if you are ready, let’s head to the House of the Devil and see if a demon or a vampire is who dwells within!

Let’s first take a look at the films villain, a vampire devil that is called Mephistopheles who has many ways to deal fright and death to humans. Mephistopheles dresses all in black and has what looks like a beard and goatee combo with a kind of a sinister appearance that makes those who see him feel very unsettled. He lives in a very big and gloomy castle that adds to his spooky appearance and his evil persona. His strange look and rundown castle strike fear in the hearts that set their eyes on them, and this can cause people to panic as well as die of fright. Mephistopheles is a vampire and a trickster who is a blood drinker and can use his fangs to drain the life out of his prey and also can use his dark magic tricks to deal fright as he can summon ghost, creatures, witches and skeletons to do his bidding. He can also cause madness in people that will cause them to even commit suicide, and he seems to truly enjoy toying with his victims. Mephistopheles also can change into a bat and can fly around his prey and attack if he chooses. Mephistopheles is also handy with a sword and can also use it in his magic when he summons his minions. While Mephistopheles is a very sneaky and tricky vampire, he does have weaknesses that can allow his human victims to fight back and escape. His first weakness is that he has clearly a sinister ego as he seems to take joy in messing with the minds of his targets and this ego makes him very cocky and can open him up for attacks and failure at his goal. His biggest weakness is seeing a crucifix as he is a vampire and this religious symbol sends him running in fear and allowing those who are armed with one to escape his grasp. While he does have some weaknesses, it is truly unknown if there is a way to kill Mephistopheles and this is what makes this devil vampire so deadly to mankind.

Now that we have taken a look at Mephistopheles and his evil ways, let’s now take a look at the classic silent horror film that he is from and that of course is House Of The Devil! Like always, I will be taking the film’s plot from our friends at IMDB and after I will be writing about the film’s production and then my thoughts about the film. So if you are ready, let’s take a look at the 1896 film that helped shape the world of horror films forever.

The House Of The Devil (1896)

“A bat flies into an ancient castle and transforms itself into Mephistopheles himself. Producing a cauldron, Mephistopheles conjures up a young girl and various supernatural creatures, one of which brandishes a crucifix in an effort to force the devil-vampire to vanish.”

Cinema was in its very early stages in 1896 and most “films” at the time were very short in run time and would feature basic stories or even just scenes of everyday things like workers leaving a factory or even silly comedy acts doing falls. But one French born director Georges Méliès wanted to make something very different as he would bring his magic and illusionist act to the screen and would wow moviegoers worldwide. During his early days in cinema, he made the three minute short film called “Le Manoir du Diable” or The House Of The Devil, a film that features a vampire devil like character called Mephistopheles who uses his dark magic to frighten two cavaliers and even creates witches, skeletons and an imp to do his bidding…and in the end of course it’s the power of the cross that saves the day. The film was shot at Méliès’ house outside near his garden with a painted backdrop used as the inside of the castle. When casting the film actress Jehanne d’Alcy is said to have played the beautiful woman that is created by Mephistopheles, and as for that character, two names are thought to have played that role with Jules-Eugene Legris being the one most think played the part while others saying that it was Méliès himself. Sadly no other actors have been credited to the film so who plays the remaining cast is unknown, and that is a shame as they deserve credit for being in an early, if not the first, horror film in cinema history. The film when released dazzled viewers and early critics, but sadly, like most silent cinema, it went missing for decades and was considered a lost film until 1988 when a copy was found in the New Zealand Film Archive, with many saying the last known print before this was sold at a junk shop in the 1940’s as well in New Zealand. While by today’s standards of what we see as horror, this film is not that scary but in 1896 I am sure while some were amused by the illusions they saw on the screen, some viewers were terrified, and I for one am glad a copy was found as this is a piece of horror history that everyone should see at least once.

As you readers know, I am a very big fan of silent horror cinema as there is something very spooky and amazing about these films as they bring the scares to the viewers with expressions and atmosphere and this gives them a very unsettling feel when watching them. One has to give the film The House Of The Devil and its director Georges Méliès lots of credit as from all accounts the horror genre of films started here with them and even vampire cinema is said to have started here making this film one of the most important films in this genre. The film has been reviewed and debated about for decades as the film plays very heavy on the magic and illusion aspects of the main baddie Mephistopheles who seems more content tricking and messing with the two cavaliers that make the mistake of entering his castle then killing them. And because Mephistopheles turns into a bat twice and is afraid of the cross in this short film, people think that it is the earliest vampire film, and I feel that this is very much the case as I think Mephistopheles is a trickster vampire who also has the powers of black magic at his twisted finger tips. The one part of the debut that really annoys me is when people try to downplay the horror of the film as they claim it was played more for laughs and such, and to that I say what do modern “critics” really know about 1896 moviegoers as I am sure there were people in the audience that were scared of the supernatural creatures and elements of the film. I mean look at the creepy little Imp guy and the spooky specters. Georges Méliès really was a pioneer of early horror, fantasy and sci-fi cinema and was one of the masters of early special effects and film tricks. This film can be found on YouTube. To sum it up ,I have lots of respect for this film and cannot stress enough just how important silent horror cinema is to the genre.

As you can see, The House Of The Devil is a very important film and its main villain Mephistopheles is truly important to the vampire culture in cinema as he is the one who started it all. And now that we have taken a look at both, I think it is now time that we move onto the review part of this update. Like I have stated, I will not be giving this comic a star rating as I work for Blood Scream Comics and even wrote the story adaptation and some of the dialogue for this comic book, so yeah it would be silly for me to grade my own work. I would first like to thank Blood Scream Comics as well as artist Jeff Potter for making this update possible and help creating this comic version of the classic film. I would also like to thank everyone who has read this comic as it was such a fun one to work on and to bring all these character to life once more in a modern age with a Blood Scream Comics Silent Universe twist! So if you are ready, I am ready to enter The House Of The Devil!

The House Of The Devil 1896 # 1
Released in 2023 Cover Price $1.99 Blood Scream # 1 of 1

Leon and Victor are two cavaliers that are caught out in a nasty thunderstorm and head to a crumbling castle that the townspeople claim is haunted, but inside the owner Mephistopheles is bored and decides to use his dark magic and a cauldron to create a woman to become one of his brides. He also has the help of a very mean hairy Imp. As Leon and Victor enter the castle to escape the storm, things start to go wrong for the two heroes as the Imp attacks and jabs Leon in the back with his pitchfork and causes him to run away deeper in the castle in fear, as Victor goes after the Imp only for the evil character to disappear. As Victor sits down for a moment to process what has just taken place, a Skeleton armed with a sword appears and attacks. Victor is able to take the head of the skeleton with his own sword as a giant bat now appears and turns into Mephistopheles who uses his four ghostly ghastly female witches to scratch the face of the cavalier before introducing him to his new lovely bride showing that his castle is filled with pain and pleasure…and lies as he forces Victor to dance with his bride who goes from beautiful to ugly on his words. Meanwhile Leon is lost in the castle and is hurt and scared, and when he is not looking, the Imp with a knife appears and removes both of the scared man’s eyes, who then stumbles around in darkness and falls over the balcony and breaks his neck as Victor watches on unable to help! Mephistopheles then shows Victor that he is a vampire and goes for the attack, but thanks to Victor’s cross necklace he is able to burn the vampires forehead that causes the blood drinker to run away and allows Victor to as well flee back into the stormy night away from the castle. Later Mephistopheles is surrounded by his servants and is filled with anger because of the pain, and soon finds that the vampire Count Orlok is in the castle and finds him to be a disappointment, and this puts the two vampires at odds.

The House Of The Devil 1896 was a very fun comic to write and it was lots of fun to bring gore and blood to this world that Georges Méliès created. It was a great experience to bring out the sinister side of the demonic vampire Mephistopheles in the pages of this comic alongside Potter, and that is the thing with Mephistopheles is he really just a trickster vampire? Or his he a demonic vampire with black magic powers? The plot is very classic horror as two cavaliers are stuck out in a nasty thunderstorm and find shelter in a haunted castle only to be attacked by the owner and the evil spirits that dwell inside its stone walls. Victor is the cavalier who stands up to these horrors and does not fall victim as he is able to escape the castle as well as hurt the evil inside the walls with his crucifix, while poor Leon is struck with fear and has his eyes removed before falling out a window and having his neck snapped! Besides Mephistopheles the vampire who likes to mess with the minds of his human prey before he kills them, there are many other evil spirits in this castle that include the Imp who with his pitchfork and knife has a thirst to spill blood, the Bride whose beauty draws you in and puts you under a spell, the skeleton warrior who is skilled with a sword, the four witches whose ghastly appearance alone can stop a mans’ heart and The Knight who sadly does not get to show off his means of death and fright in this issue. As for the horror of the comic, we tried to bring it with atmosphere from the spooky castle to the storm outside; we wanted to truly have the brooding dark feel. And of course we also had all the creepy castle dwellers and the blood kills to bring the chills as well. The interior art by Jeff Potter is amazing and his style is so good. I am shocked that he over the years never got hired by the likes of Marvel and DC as I think he truly is that good. The cover is super eye catching with the art being done by Potter and the coloring by Jason Gilmore just making it pop with almost an eerie glow. I also want to say on a side note for Free Comic Book Day 2023 a limited amount of copies were given away at the heavy metal record store Catacomb in Kettering, Ohio, and this comic and that shop go so well together! Over all I hope that we did the film justice and added enough horror elements to the story to bring a fright and a spooktacular read to all the readers who are brave enough to give it a go. Oh and just wait, I do not think that the bad blood between Mephistopheles and Count Orlok is over! Checkout the artwork below to see the style that Potter used in this House Of The Devil comic.

This was a true honor to bring into the world of comics as House Of The Devil is considered the first horror film, and on top of that director Georges Méliès was a true visionary who understood the true meaning of entertainment. I am sure many purists are a little taken aback by the more bloody elements of the comic, but we just wanted to add our own little touch to this wickedly delightful story. And like always I do want to thank Jeff Potter and Jason Gilmore for helping bring this comic to life and of course I want to thank everyone who read the comic and or read this blog update. But I think that it is time that we leave Blood Scream Comics Silent Universe behind and head to the world of indie horror as we take a look at another vampire, this time a female one by the name of Jezebeth! So until next time, read a horror comic or three, watch a silent horror film or two and as always support your local horror host. See you next time for another bloody good time!

From Horror Movie To Horror Comic: The Willies (1990)

Posted on October 4, 2017 by bloodlinematt

Welcome to the fourth spooky update to our countdown to Halloween 2017 and another in our From Horror Movie To Horror Comic series. Today’s update is about the PG-13 kid friendly horror anthology film, The Willies! Back in the 80’s and early 90’s many scary movies and TV shows were marketed towards kids as horror was super popular with the youth, and The Willies was one such movie. It’s amazing to sit back and think that The Willies got a promo comic made in order to try and draw more kids into seeing it via home video rental. So let’s start up a camp fire and all sit around it and share some tales of what I am calling “From Horror Movie To Horror Comic: The Willies”! I once more would like to say to any independent horror filmmaker or distribution company that making comics based on your films is a great idea as it is a tool to offer fans a little something more as well can bring in viewers who read comics and might not have even known about the film it was based on.

Our villains of this film are many but we have two major ones that are showcased in this film that we will focus on. The first we will look at is The Bully Killing Monster who is a tall slender demonoid like creature who feasts on the flesh and bone of mean spirited people who treat others bad. He is very sly in his way of killing as he hides and strikes when he needs to and also strikes fear into his victims. He also can wear a fake suit of human skin in order to find his targeted prey and takes the appearance of an old man school janitor who is super polite and fun loving. We get the impression that he has killed bullies for years and will continue to do so for decades to come. His manner of killing is his sharp teeth as well as his claw like hands. He can also freeze his prey with fear as he drags them into the celling to hide his killing deed. While he is a demon like monster, he can be hurt with books and soap to the face. While he is not super powerful, this monster does know how to get the job done when it comes to killing off bullies and getting away with it. Our second monsters of this film are the Mutated Giant Flies who were created by a mad farmer named Spivey who makes chemical enhanced soil. When they grow, they want revenge on a twisted young man who enjoyed capturing them and torturing them. The Mutated Flies when full grown via the soil walk on two legs and are the side of an adult human! They have a mean spirit to them and are violent towards the teen who was mean to them. They are semi strong and they kill in a pact as there are three of them and they do eat human flesh! The Mutated Flies don’t kill, they torture as they ripped off the arms of the teen in order to teach him a lesson and to feast on his removed arms. The Mutated Flies are just giant flies so they can be killed with bug spray or even squashed. While the mutated flies are not super scary nor even racking up a body count, they can cause damage to their prey. So as you can see this film has two different style of monsters and each bring something of their own to the world of horror characters.

So now that we understand the film’s top two monsters we should take some time and talk about the over all film. I will be taking the film’s write up from our pals at IMDB and I will also talk briefly about the film’s production as well as about my first time watching it with my thoughts on it. So let’s dive in and see if you will get The Willies from reading about The Willies!

The Willies (1990)

“Two brothers camping with their cousin try to frighten each other by telling stories. There are two main narrations: one involves strange happenings at an elementary school; the other, a teenage boy with a peculiar interest.”

The Willies was released in 1990 and is a Horror/Comedy film that was marketed towards teens and adults who enjoy horror anthology films. The film was written and directed by Brian Peck, who is known for his role as punker Scuz in Return Of the Living Dead, and is the only film that he ever directed. The film was lower budget and was released by Paramount Pictures on home video and joined such films Tremors, Nightbreed, Child’s Play 2, Cat In The Brain, Predator 2 and Psycho IV to name a few. The film starred lots of actors who were well known to the horror genre fans like Clu Gulagar, Sean Astin, Dana Ashbrook, Kirk Cameron, Kathleen Freeman, James Karen and Tracey Gold to name a few. The film is a mix bag of positive and negative reviews and while not a household name, The Willies does have a cult following and many fans of the film always get happy to talk about Michael Bower who played Donkeylips in the Nickelodeon show Salute Your Shorts playing a cruel bug collector in one of the shorts. The film was distributed by Force Majeure Productions and not much more can be said about the release and making of this film.

The first time I saw The Willies was via a VHS rental from Blockbuster Video when I was a teen. As always my older brother Bryan was the one who rented it, and we watched it one late weekend night while eating chips and drinking pop and immersing myself into the world of The Willies. I have always been a fan of horror anthology films and from the first watch, I can say that I really did enjoy The Willies as I found it very fun and reminded me of the show Are You Afraid Of The Dark that I was watching every week. Later on I would go on to own the film on VHS and now on DVD, and while it’s not one I re-watch super often I still enjoy watching it and can say I recommend it for horror fans who have not seen it before. My favorite story in this film is “Bad Apples” that’s about a monster in a school bathroom who gets revenge on bullies! The monster effects remind me of monsters used in the TV show Tales From The Darkside and the payout of what and who the monster is reminds me of an episode of Goosebumps! I think the main reason I really dig this movie is the fact that I love the idea of sitting around the dark woods sharing spooky stores as it reminds me of my youth and telling scary stories to friends in school or making up monsters and such with my cousins! I also enjoy the fact that the film also has smaller little spooky stories that are based on Urban Legends that we have all heard before. Plus I love the use of practical effects for everything as I think the monsters as well as the gore effects are pretty solid for this low budget of a film.

So now that we have taken a look at The Willies in film as well as two of the main monsters of the film, we should now dive into the comic book that was made to help promote the movie. I am not sure what to expect from this comic as it’s unclear whether it’s an adaptation or new stories told by the brothers and their cousin. So this element of surprise is making this read even better for me! So I first want to thank a vendor at the Monsterbash Convention for having this in stock and thanks to them I learned that this comic even existed. So with that, let’s sit around a camp fire and kick off October right and give this comic a good read and see if we can spook ourselves silly.

The Willies # 1 ***
Released in 1991 Cover Price $1.95 Force Majeure # 1 of 1

A group of youths are sitting in a tent telling each other spooky stories that include the woman who ate a fried rat at a fast food restaurant, the old man who died of a heart attack after going into a carnival’s haunted house as well as the old woman who put her dog in the microwave to dry it off! Finally one of the boys gets into his story that is about a young boy named Danny Hollister who is being picked on at school and is helped out by the school’s janitor named Mr. Jenkins who tells the youngster he will take care of the bullies! Danny leads his bullies as well as his mean spirited teacher to the bathroom where they meet their end at the hands of a monster who is in fact the janitor! Next another of the youths tells a story of Gordy, a mean fat kid who steals from a local farmer as well as likes to rip the wings off flies he captures. Well one day the Farmer gets fed up with Gordy and gives him some special chemical enhanced soil for his flies that in fact turns the fly’s human size and they get their revenge by ripping the arms of the terrible youth! After the stories the youth begin to argue that none of the stories were real when one of their fathers show up to reveal that he in fact is the monster who killed the bullies!

I must say that this is a promo comic adaptation done right as it stays faithful to the film and yet cuts just enough to make it a fast paced read that captures the fun spooky nature of the flick. The film’s plot is very simple and is much like any horror anthology comic or film as we have stories being shared that all end with Twilight Zone style twists that by the end all turn out to be true. The Three Kids are your typical group of friends spending time hanging out in the woods and sharing stories they think will shock and scare the others. While we get to know them as friends we do not get to know their personalities all that well besides one of them has lead the other two to their deaths at the hands of his monster father. It makes you wonder, did the two kids who meet their end by the comic’s conclusion pick on the third kid and that’s why he wanted his dad to kill them? The main monster of this comic series has to be the Bully Killing Monster as he massacres at least six people in the course of this comic! While at first it seems like he is nothing more than an avenger for the weak by the end it makes you wonder if he just likes to kill! The Mutated Flies are also kind of the bad guys as they do rip the arms off of a kid, but if you really want to break them down, Farmer Spivey the one who made the soil mixed with chemicals is the real baddie as he made that batch that mutated the flies with the idea that they would kill Gordy! The comic has a few good creepy moments as it captures a real EC Comic appeal with twisted tales that have morbid outcomes, the only difference is that this comic is pretty much bloodless and that’s a shame as even the film had a little of the red stuff. The comics cover is really amazing and would capture the eye of fans of the film as well as Horror Comic readers. The interior art is done by Brain Murray and is fantastic stuff as he captures the mood and even the look of the actors and characters from the film and is really great stuff. So over all, fans of this film should find this comic and give it a read as it’s amazing and will surly please, but I must warn that this comic is hard to find so if you do find a copy make sure to buy it! Check out some of the art below to see Murray’s art style.

The Willies might not be a household name when it comes to the world of Horror Films but it does have a solid and loyal cult fan base that I feel will grow more and more over the years. I also think that its great that this film did get the comic treatment as it is one that I think lends itself to being one. So with our next update we will be staying in the world of From Horror Movie To Horror Comic and will be taking a look at Jason X the tenth film in the Friday The 13^th film series and the comic from Avatar Press based on Uber Jason from the film. So until next time, tell a ghost story or three, read a horror comic or two and as always support your local Horror Host. I hope this update didn’t give you The Willies too badly as our month of Horror updates has just started see you in space for the next one!