32 Days of Halloween XVI, Day 5

Haunted Mansion 50th Anniversary
Scary Godmother
Lady Morgan’s Vengeance

A snippet of the artwork for the 1965 film Lady Morgan's Vengeance. A man and a woman stand together. He's holding a lit candelabra. They've obviously seen something they consider quite shocking.

So yes, back to the Haunted Mansion again. This time, we’re looking at the 50^th Anniversary presentation at D23 in 2019. The entire presentation is below, but if you’re short on time you want to advance to around 42:35 in. They have an early draft of the script for the Haunted Mansion ride, scribed by Disney icon X. Atencio. And they do a staged reading of it. The choice of casting for the Ghost Host is…well, let’s just say they picked the perfect Muppet for the job.

Next, we’ve got an animated film from 2003 that maybe you saw when it first hit…but I missed it completely. It’s Scary Godmother: Halloween Spooktacular, based on the books by Jill Thompson. It is apparently way out of print and nobody seems to be showing it recently, so YouTube is your best bet. If you’re unfamiliar: a little girl named Hannah Marie is set to go trick or treating but instead gets tricked into the local haunted house and locked inside by a bunch of brats. It’s there she meets the titular Scary Godmother and goes to the Fright Side, to learn how to not be afraid of monsters and to have a great party. It’s pretty great, but remember: it’s from 2003. It’s pretty early CGI days.

For tonight’s film, it’s Lady Morgan’s Vengeance from 1965. (Italian: La vendetta di Lady Morgan.) It’s your standard boy meets girl, boy murders girl, girl comes back to haunt boy. We’ve all been there. This one comes complete with English subtitles so make sure you turn the Closed Captioning on to kick them in (if they’re not already on).