Grave Misconduct: 11 Goth-Coded Halloween Costumes for 2026
A little dress-up inspired by the year's most memorable troublemakers
By: The Lace Ledger Staff
This year has been especially generous with Halloween inspiration, although we're not entirely convinced that was intentional…
Cinema has delivered some extraordinary characters, while current events have provided ample material for satire. Meanwhile, the FW26 runways have made a surprisingly persuasive case for dressing like a bird of ill omen.
Fortunately, a memorable costume doesn't require an entirely new wardrobe. Start with pieces already lurking in your closet, add a few peculiar accessories and see what treasures you can unearth at the thrift store. A little imagination goes a long way, especially when you're prepared to look slightly deranged ;).
A Killer Workout: 13 Dark Feminine Fitness Experiences for Creatures of the Night
Find your fighting spirit, perfect your posture and put your body to work
By: The Lace Ledger Staff
Even creatures of the night need their cardio. For the darkly inclined, there's a growing world of alternative fitness experiences that cater to unconventional tastes. From heavy metal yoga to horror-inspired pole dancing, there's plenty of opportunity to break a sweat without compromising your vibe.
There's something for every schedule and skill level. Join a local class, follow along from the comfort of your crypt or make a getaway of it with destination retreats and special events.
We've rounded up a wicked assortment of ways to get moving, wherever you happen to haunt.
Class Is in Session: Good Ember's Hands-On Approach to BDSM Education
Curious about kink? This Canadian intimacy brand has a few rather interesting lessons planned
By: The Lace Ledger Staff
Leather-clad dominatrices. Elaborate dungeons. Ominous contraptions that look like they belong in a medieval interrogation chamber. Popular culture has given BDSM a rather theatrical reputation, and Hollywood has certainly done its part to keep the misconceptions alive.
Beyond the familiar imagery lies a practice deeply rooted in psychology, where trust and communication create the freedom to set aside the weight of the outside world and become wholly absorbed in the experience you're sharing. Like most things involving desire, BDSM exists across a broad spectrum. Some people pursue intense, highly structured experiences, while others are simply curious about relinquishing control for an evening or introducing a new dynamic with a partner. There is plenty of territory to explore between the extremes, provided everyone involved understands the rules of engagement.
That is where Good Ember comes in.
Bound to Impress: The National Kink Month Brand Directory
13 brands we recommend exploring, whatever your experience or interests
By: The Lace Ledger Staff
October is National Kink Month, and we can't think of a better excuse to indulge a little curiosity. From haute couture latex to furnishings with rather interesting design specifications, the world of kink offers plenty to discover.
We've rounded up our favourite brands worth exploring at every level of experience, from the kink-curious to seasoned enthusiasts. A little inspiration for wherever your interests might lead.
The Witching Hour: 13 Spellbinding Films & Series for Your October Watchlist
From ancient forest folklore to modern covens, a watchlist for the season of sorcery
By: The Lace Ledger Staff
We're positively spoiled for witches on screen this season. With Practical Magic 2 bringing the Owens sisters back and YAGA set to cast its spell later this month, there's never been a better excuse to indulge in a little cinematic sorcery.
We've revisited a few cult favourites and dug up some lesser-known gems for a watchlist that takes witchcraft in all its fascinating forms.
Now S(cr)eaming: New Gothic Film + Series Releases for Fall
Spooky season’s 20 most anticipated dark releases, from late-summer through Christmas
By: The Lace Ledger Staff
As the nights grow longer, few things sound better than curling up on the couch with something dark on screen, or surrendering an evening to a spooky cinema field trip. And this season, we are spoiled.
Gothic classics have already enjoyed a banner year with Frankenstein and Dracula in the rear-view, while A-list talent continues to descend on horror alongside a particularly exciting crop of arthouse releases. With Practical Magic 2 marking our next trip to the theatre and a gloriously gruesome calendar stretching through Christmas, consider your fall viewing schedule booked.
Long Live the Vampyre: Alexis Pharae, Steward of Old-World Decadence
When folklore becomes culture, somebody had to build the ballroom
By: The Lace Ledger Staff
In 2026, the concept of a grand ball seems like something borrowed from the pages of a storybook. We imagine gowns sweeping across polished floors beneath the glitter of chandeliers, every guest dressed magnificently for the occasion. An extravagance from another age, preserved in old novels and period films, but absent from modern day life.
And yet, once a year, such a night awaits those fortunate enough to cross the threshold of Endless Night New England.
Several hundred guests arrive having spent months preparing for the occasion. Corsets are laced. Fangs catch the low light. Music spills across a ballroom transformed so completely that, until morning, the outside world feels centuries away.
An initiated Vampyre Priestess and the co-producer of the iconic Endless Night New England Vampire Ball, Alexis Pharae spends much of the year creating the elaborate gatherings that bring this international subculture together. In Salem, she and business partner Benjamin Addam are also proprietors of Vampfangs, the storied and beloved Salem institution that has been fitting fangs since 1993, now serving a broader culture through fashion and events.
We had the pleasure of speaking with Pharae about finding her place within Vampire culture and the role she now plays in shaping its future.
Admit One: Gothic Guide to TIFF 2026
12 screenings and experiences to make the most of Toronto’s biggest celebration of cinema
By: The Lace Ledger Staff
For nearly two weeks each September, Toronto becomes one of the most exciting places in the world for cinephiles. TIFF may be famous for red carpets and awards-season premieres, but its programme reaches much further, bringing television to the big screen and experimental filmmaking into the conversation alongside horror that demands a midnight audience. Add live discussions with the people shaping what we watch next and a city that enthusiastically joins the party, and there are countless ways to experience the festival beyond chasing its biggest ticket.
To help you plan accordingly, we’ve curated a gothic guide to some of the festival’s most compelling dark storytelling, with a few appropriately cinematic ways to spend the hours between screenings.
From the Festival Archives: Where Iconic Dark Cinema Made Its Debut
20 films that left the festival circuit destined for cult status
By: The Lace Ledger Staff
There’s a special kind of thrill in seeing a band in a tiny venue before the rest of the world catches on. Film festivals offer cinephiles their own version of that feeling. Every year, audiences take their seats without knowing that the film about to begin could become a future classic—or that the actor on screen might be giving the performance everyone will soon be talking about. Looking back through festival history makes those first screenings even more fascinating.
These 20 films arrived on the circuit before finding a much larger audience and earning their place in the dark cinema canon.
Scene Stealers: 10 Underrated On-Screen Dark Feminine Badasses
The formidable actresses we should all be talking about
By: The Lace Ledger Staff
There is something compelling about watching an actress disappear into a character we’re not entirely sure we should root for. These are the disrupters: actresses willing to inhabit characters who are damaged without making them helpless; dangerous without stripping away their humanity. They find beauty inside ugly stories without sanding down the edges that made them uncomfortable in the first place.
Their work makes space for women to be contradictory and occasionally difficult to love—and infinitely more interesting because of it.
From established actresses whose range deserves greater recognition to emerging talent already pushing at the boundaries, these are 10 dark feminine badasses we cannot shut up about.
Screen to Speakers: 23 Goth-Coded Soundtracks Worth Turning Up
The alternative soundtracks that entered our playlists
By: The Lace Ledger Staff
The relationship between movies and music has given us some truly legendary listening. Few understood that relationship quite like Tim Curry, whose passing this year inspired us to revisit The Rocky Horror Picture Show, and the songs that helped turn a strange little film into a cultural phenomenon. Fifty years later, audiences still know when to jump to the left.
In honour of Tim Curry and the enduring power of a perfectly curated soundtrack, we’re turning up 24 films and series whose music found a life beyond the screen. Some introduced us to new artists, while others made familiar songs impossible to hear the same way again. All earned a permanent place in our playlists.
Dark Feminine Travel Guide: A Long Weekend in Toronto
Where to stay, wander and misbehave for three days in the city
By: The Lace Ledger Staff
Toronto is so much more than Blue Jays games and Steam Whistle beneath the CN Tower. Look beyond the postcard version and you’ll find a city shaped by Gothic architecture, storied institutions and a creative culture that rewards a little curiosity.
For a long weekend worthy of your darker inclinations, we’ve curated a lux long weekend that sways between the city’s gothic heritage and its more decadent pleasures, making time for art, fashion and a few wonderfully strange discoveries along the way. Pack something black. You’re going to want options.
Reel Keepers: Inside Toronto’s Revue Cinema
How Toronto's historic movie house is carrying film nostalgia into a new era of immersive cinema
By: The Lace Ledger Staff
There was a time when seeing a movie was a proper night on the town. You bought the ticket. Chose your seat. Sat among friends and strangers. The lights went down, and for the next two hours, everyone experienced the same thing at the same time.
Streaming has made film almost infinitely accessible, putting more than a century of cinema within reach from the comfort of our couch. But convenience changed our relationship with watching it. The destination disappeared. So did much of the anticipation, occasion and collective experience that once came with going to the movies.
At Toronto's Revue Cinema, those things are very much alive.
More than a century after audiences first began filing into the Roncesvalles theatre, the Revue has become a cinephile's paradise, with programming that stretches from cult oddities and filmmaker retrospectives to audience-participation screenings and Saturday mornings fuelled by classic cartoons and unlimited cereal.
The Revue isn't simply putting old movies back on the big screen. It's finding increasingly imaginative reasons for audiences to experience them together. Here, film history is something you participate in.
Top of the Class: Dark Academia on Screen
Where intellectual obsession meets a wardrobe worthy of study
By: The Lace Ledger Staff
September has a habit of making students of us all. As classrooms fill again and the leaves begin to turn, old academic daydreams begin their annual return too. There are books to be carried, corridors to disappear down and an entire wardrobe waiting for colder weather.
In the world of fashion, Dark Academia is often sharply defined by a predictable uniform of dark tweed and severe pleated skirts against a backdrop of antique libraries. Fair play. Thankfully, cinema offers a broader education, showcasing how the aesthetic can belong to the brilliant professor coming apart at the seams or the young writer determined to put something incendiary on the page. It can be romantic, decadent or dressed in candy colours designed to disarm you.
In the right hands, a sharply tailored suit can suggest a lifetime spent collecting knowledge—and deciding exactly what to do with it. The final cut proves just how far that visual language can travel, from Mary Shelley and The Imitation Game to the pastel vengeance of Do Revenge.
So, in the spirit of back-to-school season, we went back to film school. The syllabus spans centuries and several highly questionable educational environments, studying the characters who have given Dark Academia its many cinematic lives.
Class is in session.
Love at First Site (Visit): Inside Toronto's Vegas-Style Elopement Chapel, Two of Hearts Chapel
Hannah Stein reflects on building a love letter to Toronto, creating a space where couples can celebrate with authenticity and pizzaz
By: The Lace Ledger Staff
Most often, we think of weddings as celebrations of the devotion between two people. Yet, before we can devote ourselves to a partner, we first have to remain devoted to the life we want to build.
For Two of Hearts Chapel founder Hannah Stein, that meant refusing to accept a version of a wedding that was aesthetically basic and boring, not to mention egregiously overpriced. Overwhelmed and underwhelmed by lacklustre "big wedding" options, she imagined something more fun. A place where couples could celebrate on their own terms, leaving with treasured memories instead of years of debt.
So, she created a space where couples are invited to begin the next chapter of their lives surrounded by whimsy, leaving behind the pressure of a traditional wedding in favour of the simple luxury of enjoy the moment.
One year after opening its doors, we connected with Hannah to reflect on her journey into the wedding industry, the joy of building a business unlike anything else in Toronto, why the most meaningful ceremonies are often the least complicated and what witnessing dozens of love stories has taught her about devotion—to one another and to ourselves.
Tap In: A Conversation with Psychic Medium Christina Curran
From spirit guides to summer séances, Christina’s stories gave us goosebumps!
By: The Lace Ledger Staff
Summer has a way of calling us back into the natural world.
We trade fluorescent lights for sunsets, office walls for scenic hikes and crowded schedules for slow evenings spent beneath open skies. Somewhere along the way, our curiosity expands beyond what can be measured, leaving room for intuition and the unexplained.
It felt like the perfect season to sit down with Psychic Medium and Reiki Master Christina Curran to explore the spiritual world. Together, we discuss intuition, past-life regression, spirit guides, guardian angels and even dos and don’t for communing with those who have already crossed over.
With that in mind, we invited medium Christina to share the experiences that shaped her practice. She revisits her own spiritual evolution before unpacking the recurring themes that surface during past-life regressions. If you're feeling inspired, she also offers a gentle introduction to hosting a summer séance.
In the Dressing Room with The Devil Herself: Emma Vauxdevil on Creating Cobweb Cabaret
As gothic burlesque's most distinctive production captivates audiences, Emma Vauxdevil reflects on the conviction that transformed an improbable idea into a world of its own
By: The Lace Ledger Staff
If you'd asked someone to predict where a Texas cheerleader would end up, gothic burlesque provocateur probably wouldn't have topped the list.
Then again, Emma Vauxdevil has always known how to make an entrance.
Like any accomplished burlesque performer, Emma understood the power of the slow reveal. Years of relentless practice, careful refinement and unwavering devotion to her vision preceded the moment audiences met "The Devil Herself."
What began as dress-up in front of a childhood mirror eventually became Cobweb Cabaret, a gothic burlesque production built with uncompromising artistic direction. It stands as proof that some dreams aren't found; they're built so boldly that other people eventually discover they were searching for them all along.
Ahead, Emma reflects on the winding road from growing up in Texas to taking centre stage on the West Coast, reflecting on the perseverance that forged an improbable dream into the career she couldn't imagine living without.
In Loving Memory: 20 Films About Death, Grief & Remembrance
Stories of spouses, parents, children and friends learning to carry on after loss
By: The Lace Ledger Staff
They say nothing in life is certain except death and taxes—a familiar turn of phrase that makes mortality sound almost manageable. Bereavement, unfortunately, carries no such simplicity.
It can leave us searching for language, companionship or some assurance that another person has survived the shape of what we are feeling. In those moments, film can offer a place to sit with loss and see our grief reflected in the experiences of loved ones.
These are the stories that have helped see us through encounters with loss, reminding us that carrying on does not require leaving anyone behind.
Insatiable Cravings: 20 Films About Excess & Obsession
Love. Power. Wealth. Beauty. Status. Some appetites grow stronger once they're fed.
By: The Lace Ledger Staff
Hunger comes in many forms. Sometimes it's for success, sometimes it's for status and sometimes it's for another person entirely. These films and series examine the consequences of gluttony, following characters whose relentless pursuit of "more" ultimately becomes their greatest downfall.
15 Foodie Films to Devour for Culinary Arts Month
Sink your teeth into these on-screen stories
By: The Lace Ledger
Food has always been one of film and television's most versatile supporting characters. It can bring strangers together, drive people apart, mark celebrations, conceal secrets or become an art form in its own right.
To celebrate Culinary Arts Month (July), we've rounded up 15 films and series where every plate, kitchen and restaurant adds something memorable to the story.