Vormittagsspuk (Ghosts Before Breakfast) (1928)

This little short stop motion film (where an object is moved small amounts between frames, thus appearing to be moving on its own) is a creepy little movie. The thing is, the ghost are not the creepy part, its the group of four guys who seem to come in contact with spirits before their bowl of oatmeal, or in this case a cup of coffee.

To pretty much answer the question "how does a lunatic think?", well this movie is as close to answering that question. Involving flying hats that land perfectly on the tops of bushes (and eachother) and really creepy guys looking everywhere with deathly blank stares, seeming to have lost their hats (and sanitys) to some mischievous celestial beings (who are expert revolver stackers). Seriously, they could have been wax figures for all I know, they were that weird looking. Then there is a scene where a figure of a man is standing behind a target and another man is trying to shoot him, but suddenly the first guy's head starts spinning around. Then cue ghost gun stacking and spinning cutscene. Yea, pretty darn weird.


This actually has some of the more disturbing (not really for these times, but I thought they were a little bit freaky) scenes ive seen in some early work like this. The "beard rubbing scene" is probably the creepiest thing (the one guy who starts twisting his mustache..eh) and then the guy with the horrid (I mean hoorrid) teeth rocking his head back and forth while two guys bash eachother bare handedly.

These German guys were probably the greatest filmmakers of the 20's (even on into the early thirties, before the American noir movement) and Hans Richter's little film really shows how odd some of their material really was.

Maybe it was a good thing the Nazi's destroyed the sound version of the film, I cant imagine who could bare that experience.


Also, i dont quite understand why the guy with the hat on his head was looking for a hat as well, but maybe he was just helping the other weirdos out.




Furthermore, I just found a copy with music (not sure if it is the real deal, will look into it) and lets just say, its exactly what you would expect to be playing at some serial rapists barber shop.