A NIGHTMARE / Silent Horror Short - 1896

Georges Melies directed 532 shorts between 1896 and 1913, he had 186 acting credits, 94 credits as producer, 45 writing credits, 25 credits as production designer, 12 credits as editor, 9 credits as cinematographer, 9 credits for special effects, plus a few others... WOWZERS!!

So, it starts when our sleeper wakes up and finds a cute woman dressed in a toga at the foot of his bed, what luck!

And when he's ready to put the make on the comely bedsitter, she changes into a black Dixieland banjo player, apparently a nocturnal illusion come to mess with him.

The guy stands up and hovers over the perplexed sleeper, banjo ready to strum.

Our sleeper jumps up to confront the creepy figure, but...

The Dixieland dude changes into a clown! And we all know that clowns are among the scariest of all the things to appear in dreams, rather, nightmares!

The clown goes over to the balcony and disappears...

The man points at the full Moon in the night sky.

Suddenly, the Man in the Moon appears there and almost chews off the man's fingers before he pulls them away!

The man has a little conversation with the big guy, before...

The Man in the Moon goes back in the sky but the three characters he previously encountered are back out on the balcony, now what?

The clown and the banjo player come in and start pestering the man, and it's pure mayhem!..

Our sleeper wakes up with a start and examines his bedroom for the creeps who invaded his dream. And after he finds nothing...

He decides to just go back to sleep. Love these old shorts, hey, this one was made 126 years ago! That's a long damn time, I have a little trouble wrapping my head around that fact.