Oscar Méténier was a French playwright and novelist. In 1897 he founded Le Théâtre du Grand-Guignol in Paris, planning it as a space for naturalist performance.

Le Théâtre du Grand-Guignol —known as the Grand Guignol–was a theatre in the Pigalle district of Paris. From its opening in 1897 until its closing in 1962, it specialised in naturalistic horror shows. Its name is often used as a general term for graphic, amoral horror entertainment, a genre popular from Elizabethan and Jacobean theatre, to today's splatter films.