Segundo de Chomòn had first adapted George Méliès's story of the weary traveler at the inn in 1905 as one of his earliest trick films for the Pathé company. That version of the well-known theme, "A Dreadful Night" ("Une Nuit Épouvantable") can be considered a much, much more simplistic rendering of the story. The director used the simple trick of substitution splicing to create the effects needed for the film, and used only a few of his own ideas to make the short seem different. The filmmaking style was also very typical of Méliès: a single, unchanging long shot used to capture the action (albeit with one scene change at the end). In other words, not very original!
However, that was in 1905. Chomòn had not yet developed his own filmmaking style and there was merely copying what others did. As the years progressed further, however, this changed. Yes, his films were occasionally theatrical looking and reminiscent of Méliès (as in "The Fairy of the Black Rocks" of 1907, which was very stagy) and they did sometimes incorporate old tricks with no stories (like "Wonderful Mirrors" from 1907 and "A Hundred Tricks" from 1906) but for the most part, there was a big style difference. He began to learn about cutting, such as incorporating medium closeups and (sometimes) closeups into his films to create a more advanced work; he learned of stop-motion animation, the concept of taking photos of an object and putting them together to make the object move; he learned of claymation, the use of clay morphed to make different shapes and animated like stop-motion. Eventually, he began to really become his own filmmaker and have his own style--and if you were to compare the two rivals, Chomòn and Méliès, you would get very different styles and techniques.
"L'Hotel Hante" was made four years after Chomòn's original take on the Méliès theme, and watching it shows you how much the director had improved over that small amount of time. Instead of featuring a stagy long shot, the main scene of this film takes place much closer to the actor and allows you to see his reactions to the goings-on a lot easier. (Even though it doesn't have much in the way of cutting, there is a brief medium closeup at the beginning of the man's silhouette while he prepares for bed. I am clueless as to why they bothered doing this). Furthermore, the effects are more creative, as the bed moves on its own and the chairs multiply. Still more credit goes to the terrific demon/monster/creature costumes, as they pop up on either side of the bed and terrorize him.
The highlight of "L'Hotel Hante", however, comes from the wonderful pixilation technique (maybe not exactly pixilation--the actor isn't really animated) used with the chairs and the man. Soon after the chairs multiply, the inn guest sits on one at the end of the line and is moved down the row like magic (and later, in the same way, around a circle of them). Finally, the ending is a truly creative touch, one which should not and will not be spoiled for viewers of the film. Méliès never really used stop-motion animation, pixilation or any of those effects in his films--only stage trickery to make inanimate things move--and that's why the two are very different. Thus, this three-minute effort can be considered a very good, even more sophisticated, response to Méliès's stagier trick films. At this point, the market in that genre had unfortunately already plummeted down very far--but I don't doubt that there were a few people out there during the period who would pay to see Chomòn's more advanced effects.