#bonuspost

🖤 Goth Goose & Her Bestie

Now that I’ve wrapped up my Halloween movie marathon, it’s time for something a little lighter: I’m drawing my goth goose teaching her bestie how to dress goth for Halloween! 🕸️

I decided to give Nina a Swedish accent — thought that could be cute. Expect lots of lace, feathers, and clueless best-friend energy while she’s trying to decide between “vampire chic” and “funeralcore.”

The Monster (1903)

★★★★★ Watched 18 Oct 2025

By 1903, Georges Méliès had mastered the art of turning stage magic into cinema, and The Monster might be one of his most purely enjoyable short films. It’s good, clear storytelling, told with the brisk rhythm of a newspaper comic strip come to life.

A magician performs for a single spectator, summoning a skeleton from thin air. With a few waves of his hands (and Méliès’ ingenious jump cuts), the skeleton transforms. First, into a writhing monster, then into a beautiful woman. The spectator falls for her instantly, only for chaos to erupt when she’s turned back into a skeleton. The magician gives chase, desperate to get his creation back.

Le Château Hanté (1897)

★★★★ Watched 17 Oct 2025

Even without intertitles, The Haunted Castle (1897)—or Le château hanté in its native tongue—makes far more sense than Georges Méliès’ charming but utterly incomprehensible The House of the Devil (1896). Here, we get one of the earliest examples of clear storytelling in film, a simple, funny ghost story that manages to tell a complete narrative in under a minute.

The setup is straightforward: a man lives in a haunted house where a ghost keeps appearing, frightening or pranking him. Each time he works up the courage to confront it, the ghost vanishes, only for a new one to materialize and trick him again. The final gag lands as a perfect little punchline, turning the whole haunting into a comedy of supernatural mischief.