The Haunted Curiosity Shop is a 1901

1901 in film

The year 1901 in film involved some significant events.-Events:*Edwin S. Porter is put in charge of Thomas Edison's motion-picture production company.* Thomas Edison closes "America's First Movie Studio", the Black Maria.-Films released in 1901:...

 British short

Short subject

A short film is any film not long enough to be considered a feature film. No consensus exists as to where that boundary is drawn: the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences defines a short film as "an original motion picture that has a running time of 40 minutes or less, including all...

  silent

Silent film

A silent film is a film with no synchronized recorded sound, especially with no spoken dialogue. In silent films for entertainment the dialogue is transmitted through muted gestures, pantomime and title cards...

 horror film

Horror film

Horror films seek to elicit a negative emotional reaction from viewers by playing on the audience's most primal fears. They often feature scenes that startle the viewer through the means of macabre and the supernatural, thus frequently overlapping with the fantasy and science fiction genres...

, directed by Walter R. Booth

Walter R. Booth

Walter Robert Booth was a British magician and early pioneer of British film working first for Robert W. Paul and then Charles Urban mostly on "trick" films, where he pioneered the use of hand-drawing techniques that lead to the first British animated film, The Hand of the Artist...

, featuring an elderly curio dealer alarmed by various apparitions that appear in his shop. The film, "was clearly devised purely as a showcase for Booth and Paul's bag of tricks," and according to Michael Brooke of BFI Screenonline, "it's an effective and engrossing experience."