GRAND GUIGNOL SILENT SHORTS 1898-1921

In a rough corner of Paris’s Pigalle neighborhood, a converted chapel became home to a legendary theater built on shocking realism and gruesome spectacle. By the early 1920s, filmmakers were adapting Grand Guignol stories into short, intense films dripping with dread, serving as early landmarks in a genre that didn’t yet have a name: horror.

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Six decades after its final performance, the Grand Guignol remains one of entertainment history’s most misunderstood yet influential traditions, its fingerprints still visible today in everything from horror cinema, tabloid journalism, avant-garde theater, true crime and beyond.

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This program spotlights a selection of the era’s most significant shorts. Brand-new 4K restorations by Severin Films breathe new life into these century-old terrors, offering a rare chance to travel back to horror’s earliest days, accompanied by new scores by musician David J of Bauhaus.