The Beginning of the End

Fred Ott’s Sneeze (W.K.L. Dickson, 1894): 5/5
In this shocking horror tale from the Edison Co., the monster Ott, deceptively holding a handkerchief to suggest he will abide by public health policy, turns against his creator and sprays him with a load of viral pathogens.  First-time helmer Dickson, in a taut, fast-paced narrative, both invents the cinema and envisions the uncontrollable, alien force within us that must ultimately destroy it. The ceremony of innocence is drowned; mere anarchy is loosed upon the world. (Now playing everywhere.)