Omnibus to Hell and the Inescapable Carriage: Richard Oswald’s Unheimliche Geschichten / Tales of the Uncanny (1919), Victor Sjöström’s The Phantom Carriage (1921) and Paul Leni’s Das Wachsfigurenkabinett / Waxworks (1924)

Diverse ways of structuring uncanny narratives in Oswald’s Unheimliche Geschichten, Sjöström’s The Phantom Carriage and Leni’s Das Wachsfigurenkabinett consolidated new strains of fear in early film. Leni had worked with a portmanteau structure in his Hoffmann’s Erzählungen / Hoffmann’s Tales (1916) and made use of a prologue to introduce his players in character. Unheimliche Geschichten, as well as exploring a variety of comic and fearful possibilities intrinsic to its composite structure, is also notable in its use of an introductory prologue followed by a prelude creating a framing perspective, similar to ‘frames’ in cabaret shows involving actors playing the devil,