"Seven Footprints to Satan" is a bizarre little film, although I suppose one might've expected as much from the director of "Häxan" (1922), Benjamin Christensen. I've been reviewing some of the earliest old-dark-house horror comedies recently, and, for much of this one, I thought I'd been led astray, as it didn't seem to be following the formula of, say, "The Bat" (1926) or "The Cat and the Canary" (1927). But, then, there was the usual twist ending that resolved any strange or supernatural suppositions, plus its hero is the same actor from "The Cat and the Canary." Normally, these things involve a murder mystery and a masked menace tormenting the frightened inhabitants of a seemingly-haunted house, but, here, there's quite a bit of apparent murdering and a bunch of weirdos tormenting the hero and heroine, as well as other victims--seemingly all in the name of the central masked menace of Satan. There's lots of gunplay, the heroes being trapped in a car as well as the house, whipping of female slaves, foreboding dwarfs, a marauding ape, an Oriental, some guy on crutches, maybe a wolf man, among other strange characters, a couple parties that may be orgies and a game-show-like contest hosted by Satan, in addition to the typical hidden rooms, passages and panels.
As others have mentioned, some of this reminds one of Stanley Kubrick's "Eyes Wide Shut" (1999) and David Fincher's "The Game" (1997). Like everyone, I assume, who hasn't had access to a print at an archive or festival, I saw a low-quality reduction copy without original intertitles (or the original soundtrack, which reportedly included sound effects and talkie scenes producing the common goat gland mix of late Hollywood silent films), so it's difficult to appreciate its bizarre visuals. With other spooky spoofs such as "The Bat" and "The Cat and the Canary" that's the most important aspect of the picture, too, because the characters and mystery aspects tend to be silly nonsense. In particular, in this case, there are a couple upward-moving camera shots/wipe effects to transition to higher stories in the house, but due to the low quality of the version I saw, it's impossible to determine the exact technique used.
Fortunately, like the better early haunted house films I've seen, before James Whale put the subgenre on firmer and darker horror film footing with "The Old Dark House" (1932), this one includes some self-reference in its narrative, which I find more interesting than any twist ending or resolution to a whodunit. In different ways, "The Monster" (1925) and "The Last Warning" (1929) also achieve this. In this respect, I was reminded of an earlier and, perhaps at first, seemingly very different picture in tone, "Wild and Woolly" (1917), a modern Western comedy for its star Douglas Fairbanks, before he switched to swashbuckling in the 1920s. In "Wild and Woolly," Doug, like the hero here, seeks adventure, and to gain his business, as in this film, the townsfolk create an elaborate hoax to satisfy him. In that case, it was pretending the town was as raucous as Doug's fantasy of the old Western frontier; here, it's a business remade as a haunted house inhabited by a Satanic cult. In both films, the self-reference is to movie making, with actors playing actors and sets being disguised to fool us and our surrogate hero, to satisfy our desire for adventure.
As others have mentioned, some of this reminds one of Stanley Kubrick's "Eyes Wide Shut" (1999) and David Fincher's "The Game" (1997). Like everyone, I assume, who hasn't had access to a print at an archive or festival, I saw a low-quality reduction copy without original intertitles (or the original soundtrack, which reportedly included sound effects and talkie scenes producing the common goat gland mix of late Hollywood silent films), so it's difficult to appreciate its bizarre visuals. With other spooky spoofs such as "The Bat" and "The Cat and the Canary" that's the most important aspect of the picture, too, because the characters and mystery aspects tend to be silly nonsense. In particular, in this case, there are a couple upward-moving camera shots/wipe effects to transition to higher stories in the house, but due to the low quality of the version I saw, it's impossible to determine the exact technique used.
Fortunately, like the better early haunted house films I've seen, before James Whale put the subgenre on firmer and darker horror film footing with "The Old Dark House" (1932), this one includes some self-reference in its narrative, which I find more interesting than any twist ending or resolution to a whodunit. In different ways, "The Monster" (1925) and "The Last Warning" (1929) also achieve this. In this respect, I was reminded of an earlier and, perhaps at first, seemingly very different picture in tone, "Wild and Woolly" (1917), a modern Western comedy for its star Douglas Fairbanks, before he switched to swashbuckling in the 1920s. In "Wild and Woolly," Doug, like the hero here, seeks adventure, and to gain his business, as in this film, the townsfolk create an elaborate hoax to satisfy him. In that case, it was pretending the town was as raucous as Doug's fantasy of the old Western frontier; here, it's a business remade as a haunted house inhabited by a Satanic cult. In both films, the self-reference is to movie making, with actors playing actors and sets being disguised to fool us and our surrogate hero, to satisfy our desire for adventure.