Movies
[San Diego Comic-Con ’12] Video: Showtime Shares Opening Scene From “Dexter” Season 7 – Panel Highlights!!
Showtime took to Ballroom 20 this Thursday night to share the following 2-minute clip from the opening scene of the seventh season of “Dexter.” What happens when Debra (Jennifer Carpenter) walks in and catches her brother’s “Dark Passenger”? We’ll have a full report from the panel forthcoming. Watch this spot.
For those yet to be aquatinted with the show, it follows likeable Miami police forensics expert named Dexter (Michael C. Hal) moonlights as a serial killer of criminals who he believes have escaped justice.
We’ve recapped the entire panel inside to fill you in on all of this new season’s bloody hi-jinxes!
After a recap of season 6 and the above opening sequence from the season 7 premiere, the panel kickstarted with stars Michael C. Hall and Jennifer Carpenter, guest star Yvonne Strahovski, showrunner Scott Buck, and producer Wendy West.
All they would tell us about Yvonne’s character, Hannah McKay, is that she’s a woman of mystery with a dark past who helps Dexter with an investigation into an old murder.
What about Deb? Does she finally “know” what’s up now? Jennifer Carpenter said no, she’s taking it one step at a time – one forward, ten back.
What about Dexter becoming more human? Hall said he is learning the darker side of human nature – manipulative, paranoid, self-centered. That was followed by a funny moment when Hall was asked by a fan how he’s like Dexter – he turned to Jennifer Carpenter and asked, “You want to answer that?”
If the theme of Season 6 was spirituality, what about Season 7? Buck said it’s the simplest of all – What are the consequences of love?
Hall was asked if he can explain the appeal of the character to so many people. He said it appeals to people in a lot of different ways, but mostly he thinks it’s that we all have a shadow side we have to hide and manage.
What about Harry (James Remar, who unfortunately wasn’t there)? We’ll see Harry as usual in Season 7 and also in flashbacks to when Dex and Deb were young.
How will Deb evolve this season? Carpenter said she feels lost with no compass. The tables have turned – Dexter is moving with certainty now, and she’s trapped in her own fucking head.
And Dex’s relationship with Harrison? As Harrison becomes more perceptive, the situation becomes dicier. Dexter has to face what he’s trying to pull off as a parent.
Finally, what was Dexter’s most satisfying kill? As expected, Hall said the biggest prize was Trinity. But they’re like his children – he loves them all!
The new season begin September 30th on Showtime.
The trailer for Ti West’s upcoming adaptation of A Christmas Carol raised a lot of eyebrows when it dropped earlier this week. While plenty of folks initially dismissed Ebenezer as a derivative project meant to cash in on the recent wave of unnecessary prequels that expand the backstory of beloved characters (such as 2023’s Wonka), Charles Dickens’ original novel already made a point of exploring Ebenezer Scrooge’s origins in detail – meaning that this new film is likely just a particularly faithful adaptation of the source material under a different name.
Couple that with the fact that the movie is being helmed by a genuine horror auteur and I think it’s safe to say that the latest iteration of the first modern ghost story is in good hands.
That being said, one detail that immediately jumped out at me during the brief teaser (other than a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it nod to Johnny Depp’s iconic bedroom death scene from the original A Nightmare on Elm Street) is the fact that many of Ebenezer’s ghosts appear to have been directly lifted from the iconic John Leech illustrations that accompanied the first edition of Dickens’ novel.
Here are a couple of stills from the trailer compared to the original artwork:
The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come in ‘Ebenezer’ and ‘A Christmas Carol’
The Phantoms in ‘A Christmas Carol’ and ‘Ebenezer’
Marley’s Ghost in ‘Ebenezer’ and ‘A Christmas Carol’
Mainly working with old-school wood and steel engravings that would later be transferred to print, Leech was instrumental in crafting the iconic look of history’s most influential phantoms – especially since Dickens is said to have been deeply involved with the creation of these so-called “comic illustrations.”
And since the novel is commonly said to have popularized spiritualism in Victorian England, much of the ghostly iconography that we still see in genre media to this very day (including some of Ti West’s previous films) can be traced back to the author’s partnership with Leech.
Ebenezer won’t be the first A Christmas Carol adaptation to borrow heavily from these designs, but I can appreciate how Ti West is incorporating an important part of horror history into his latest film.
Ebenezer will be available in theaters starting November 13.
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