Lucybespro It is a performances centric movie

Dorathen Better Late Then Never

Afouotos Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

StyleSk8r At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

He_who_lurks I thought this short was very well done. It is one of the few silent films that still fascinates and intrigues today, as it is chock-full of special effects. Some of this Edwin S. Porter borrowed from Georges Melies, who made many dream films similar to this one. But I actually think Porter did a much better job here than Melies would've done and his effects are a step ahead.In this 5 minute short, a rarebit fiend (for those who don't know what that is, it's rabbit, so this guy is obsessed with cooked rabbit) gorges himself and not long after he's finished he starts hallucinating (he also had too much alcohol as well). The world spins around him (this is a simply amazing effect and looks excellent even today), and he cannot make his way home. A man helps him home where he gets in bed and starts to have terrible dreams. His bed flies through mid air above the city and he gets caught on a weather-vane. The effects all look amazing. The most well-known sequence of the movie would have to be the demons picking away at the guy's head.The whole thing is just weird and is very good for 1906. I mean, it sold 192 copies! Cool and something that is still watchable today.

Boba_Fett1138 Because the medium of film and just film-making in general was still something obviously mostly new in 1906, there were less rules to go by, which allowed the movie to be very creative and also innovative of its own. This is why these old movies from the earliest days of cinema are often such an interesting watch.And this movie is truly being a creative and innovative one. Basically every sequences in this movie uses an unique set-up, that also use some great innovative movie techniques in them, since the entire movie is basically being a dream-like hallucinative trip.The main concept got based on an early newspaper comic strip, so with some imagination this movie is being one of the very first comic book adaptation, if not the first. Later on some more movies based on this comic would appear, with as a difference that those got animated and were something that the cartoonist and animator Winsor McCay himself was involved with as well.It's a movie that is being played out as a comedy. It's not the sort of comedy that will make you laugh but it's more the sort of short movie that amuses you throughout, though I'm still sure it had its audience laughing, back in 1906.An amusing early, experimental, short, from the Edison studios.8/10http://bobafett1138.blogspot.com/

tavm I saw two versions of this live-action version of Winsor McCay's comic strip Dreams of a Rarebit Fiend. The Google Video version had music suitable for the era and film. The YouTube version (which Google now links to as well) used Carl Stalling's music for Warner Bros. cartoon shorts along with Treg Brown's sound effects that seemed WAY unsuitable. Director Edwin S. Porter gives wonderful visual touches throughout from the whirling lamppost sequence to depict drunkenness to the bed jumping up and down while the drunk tries to sleep to his dreams of three devils picking at his head to him hanging on a swinging weather vane. Two bad the print of both versions were downright poor with washed out frames nearly constantly. Recommended mainly for film enthusiasts.

jesseorriss What an amazing cinematic experience! Just as Porter's influence was starting to wane, he makes what is arguably his most visually stunning film. Though not as famous as "Life of an American Fireman", Rarebit Fiend is a clever, captivating piece of film history.The 'plot' as such is irrelevant - what the film does is take opportunities to showcase as many new special effects as it possibly can. Tricks of space, dimension, time, both in-camera and on set, create one of cinema's first convincing nightmare perspectives. Predating the surrealist era by decades, Porter's film is a must see for all fans of non-linear and non-traditional film-making.