Seven Footprints to Satan (1928)

Released in 1929, Seven Footprints to Satan has the rare distinction of being the last silent horror film. The following year, silent films would be entirely phased out and replaced with “talkies”. The version had a music score that did not match the late 1920’s and instead sounded like something out of Castlevania or a comparable video game. The title-carded film plays like a painting, though, and the camera rarely moves or changes angles in the middle of shots.

The film stars Creighton Hale as Jim, who is preparing to leave for Africa when he is brought to a mansion with Eve (Thelma Todd). It’s funny because even though the film is a black and white silent film, it’s very clear that Todd and Hale have little chemistry between one another and are not a couple. At the mansion, Jim ends up having to repeat an established set of steps and if he gets more than four wrong, he’ll be unable to escape. It’s just goes to show that horror films with gimmicks are nothing new.

It also might seem hard to believe considering the film’s out of date tone, but it’s legitimately creepy. There’s scary midgets, Satanic imagery, and spiders. There are also men in gorilla costumes and wenches. Today, the film even feels like a moody and dark tone piece. But, in 1929 when the film was released, it received negative reviews in the New York Times for being an “utterly moronic film”.

Would I watch this again? No. There’s not enough substance or meaningful imagery to warrant a second view, but for a first-view, Seven Footprints to Satan is actually pretty interesting and it marks an important turning point for horror film. The film’s director, Benjamin Christensen is a Danish director who also directed the classics, The Haunted House and The Devil’s Circus.

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Lesson learned: Not a lesson exactly, but it’s amazing to watch a title-carded film without dialogue and realize that if done correctly, even these films start out slowly, build pace, hit a climax, and then drop off. Storytelling is storytelling. It doesn’t matter if you’re watching a silent film from 1928 or 2018’s A Quiet Place.