The Moon (any moon) to commemorate the end of the final man-manned moon landing.

“Laugh, my friends. Laugh with me, laugh for me, because I dream for you.”

– Georges Méliès, 1937

In true Méliès style, a wild menagerie of showgirls and scientists meet on the Moon in this groundbreaking sci-fi spectacle.

A planet with rings for Saturnalia

 

Two lovely newlyweds and their robot chauffeur take a trip to Saturn for their honeymoon, followed by a jolly ride under the sea. A remake of Booth's own The '?' Motorist from 1906.

A temple*

“Now consummate the sacrifice in your throat of flame, o father and mother, o god and goddess, o father and mother, o father and son, o god and goddess! Voracious creator! Roaring ardent hunger…”

The world's first epic film and the debut of – the later hugely popular – strongman Maciste.

 

* the Bales 2025 Film Challenge for December has a few dateless themes. This is one of them.

A journey or road trip*

 

Four weeks in four minutes, spanning decades in its disruptive form.

 

* the Bales 2025 Film Challenge for November is, again, not date-based, but follows a sloppy schmaltzy all-American Thanksgiving-y narrative. Trying to make it work my way.

[A] favourite horror movie overall*

”'M. Valdemar,' I said, 'are you asleep?' He made no answer, but I perceived a tremor about the lips, and was thus induced to repeat the question, again and again. At its third repetition, his whole frame was agitated by a very slight shivering; the eye-lids unclosed themselves so far as to display a white line of the{n} ball; the lips moved sluggishly, and from between them, in a barely audible whisper, issued the words:

'Yes; — asleep now. Do not wake me! — let me die so!'”

– Edgar Allan Poe, The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar (1845) (via)

A man agrees on being hypnotised while in the state of dying. This particularly haunting and efficiently gory film – the first in the genre – is the result.

 

* the Bales 2025 Film Challenge for October is horror-themed as opposed to date-based, and is all about favourites. Expect non-horror and films I believe to be relevant instead.

A favourite horror film adapted from a book or short story*

“Everything in this masterpiece contributes to its unity: the absolute mastery of editing and rhythm; slow motion, superimpositions, tracking shots, the mobile camera all play their roles and never gratuitously. The photographic quality, worthy of the most learned German operators, the lighting of the sets which envelops them in mystery, the sets themselves, neither realistic nor stylized, but as if sketched; the acting neither realistic nor expressionist, and yet adapted to the fantastic, to the violence; to the pauses; to the blur.”

– Henri Langlois, via

A groundbreaking expressionist interpretation of Poe's inner horrors. Many of the tropes so common in later horror films, are fully fledged and present here.

 

* the Bales 2025 Film Challenge for October is horror-themed as opposed to date-based, and is all about favourites. Expect non-horror and films I believe to be relevant instead.

A [favourite] horror comedy*. This post goes out to Max Linder, who – together with his wife Hélène “Ninette” Peters – took his own life 100 years ago, on October 31, 1925.

 

Max (Max Linder) bets that he can spend one whole hour in a haunted castle without calling for help. In face of all the (in camera!) terrors, Max faces his fears with ease. Until, just minutes before the clock strikes midnight, the phone rings.

“Strange things are happening today.”

– title card

And there was this other bet. One between Linder and director Abel Gance. Linder bet that Gance would not be able to shoot a movie in only three days. With ghosts, skeletons, and wildlife galore, the result is a delightful Grand Guignol à la Max.

 

* the Bales 2025 Film Challenge for October is horror-themed as opposed to date-based, and is all about favourites. Expect non-horror and films I believe to be relevant instead.

A [favourite] silent horror film*

 

Incomplete and, despite the generally accepted popular Occidental opinion, not a horror film. Oh, to have seen this narrated by Musei Tokugawa…

 

* the Bales 2025 Film Challenge for October is horror-themed as opposed to date-based, and is all about favourites. Expect non-horror and films I believe to be relevant instead.

Depending on the language version you watch, you'll see a 1928 newspaper headline dated September 20 (a Thursday), January 10 (a Tuesday), or January 9 (a Monday).