Spook Sport

Name: Spook Sport
Genre: Animation, Music, Horror
Released: 1940-01-01
Duration: 8 min
Rating: 7.1

1940·Animation·8m

7.1

★

It's midnight in a graveyard. The principal characters are spooks, ghosts, bats, bells, and, at the end, the sun. As midnight strikes, 12 spooks appear, then two ghosts. They move to the music's rhythm. Against the black night, they are blue and yellow. Bats appear as does a xylophone of bones. Mist rises, spooks swirl. A bell tolls. The sky turns light blue, the ghosts' dance slows. Then black night returns bringing intimations of frenzy. Bones play snare drums; spooks peek out of square graves. Scary faces appear. Frenetic movement takes over. A rooster crows and all return to earth as the sun's light appears.

Directed by Norman McLaren and Mary Ellen Bute and Ted Nemeth

ghost

graveyard

woman director

short film

IMDB

N/A

Crew

Norman McLaren

Director

Mary Ellen Bute

Director

Ted Nemeth

Director

Norman McLaren

Producer

Camille Saint-Saëns

Music

Popular Reviews

14 reviews

Lewis

6.0★ · 11/12/25

Yea go crazy on the xylobone

Jerssey Alas

10.0★ · 10/17/25

I loved the fuzzy worms. 10/10

Jack Dearden

4.7★ · 03/06/24

Finally cinema made for me

John Lewis

6.0★ · 02/25/24

Feels too long. Great animation though.

Gabriel Silva

6.9★ · 01/10/24

Camille Saint-Saëns is one of my favorite composers from the Romantic era and Spook Sport makes use of one of his gleefully mischievous Dance Macabre in a wonderful display of early experimental animation. McLaren’s animation pairs well with Bute’s sensibilities, creating a “cast” of characters that are mere shapes presented through ink and film. The characters retain their established shapes very rarely, opting to be presented through movement of line instead and represented as themselves through use of colour. It’s a very satisfying piece of animation which does truly feel more akin to a dance performance in terms of storytelling and visual than anything else.