This is the Roundhay Garden Scene, the earliest surviving motion picture, shot in 1888 in the Leeds garden of Joseph and Sarah Whitley.

The scene is only 2 seconds long, but it seems to have conveyed a queer curse.

Sarah died only 10 days after the shoot.

Director Louis Le Prince vanished from a French train two years later.

Actor Alphonse Le Prince was found dead of a gunshot in 1902.

Additionally, plans for a 2010 Hollywood big-budget re-make of the film, to be called Roundhay Garden Scene: Bloody Night Before Christmas of the The Paranormal Apocalyptic Attack By Mars, seems to be having it’s own share of bad luck.

Director Tim Burton’s insists the main characters be pirate skeletons with giant scissor hands and death ray eyes, and actress Angelina Jolie is now demanding a part be written for an ex-CIA agent on the run from a Nazi death squad to be played by hubby Brad Pitt. Angelina has also increased her salary demands to $160 million for her appearance in the two-second epic.

The Odditorium - a compendium of the strange...