The sort of stuff happening in "Le Château Hanté" (literally "The Haunted House" but somehow titled in English "The Devil's Castle") is very, very, very familiar if you are acquainted with the films of the French filmmaker Georges Méliès. Méliès was a stage magician who began using many concepts from magic in films starting in 1896...just a year before he made this picture. One of his favorite tricks was to stop filming mid-scene and then change things in the picture and then have the cameraman continue cranking the camera...in order to make it seem as if something disappears, appears or changes before your eyes). In this case, a poor guy (the director himself) is in a house and furniture starts appearing and disappearing before his eyes. In addition, people and a knight also appear...freaking the poor guy out in the process. It's clever for the time BUT if you have seen a fair share of his films, you'll also realize he'd done the same thing and similar things many, many other times.
Review of The Devil's Castle
