Grand Guignol
The Grand Guinol was founded in 1894 by Oscar Méténier. It was, at the time, the smallest theater in Paris. Méténier’s goal was to use horror, brutatlity and grisly detail to inflict immense horror onto his audience. One time Méténier tried to graphically reproduce an execution by guillotine but was stopped by the police.
He is said to have measured the success of a play by the number of people who fainted during its performance. The special effects used in his production were so intense that it wasn’t hard to make people faint.
His productions were not for the faint of heart. They featured topics such as necrophilia, leprosy, syphilis, torture, graphic brain surgery, killing children and sex.









