Editorials
10 Underrated Creature Features You Need to See
Not one but two creature features came out this just past weekend: Zombeavers, about a bunch of zombified beavers attacking college kids on Spring Break, and Backcountry, about a camping couple being stalked by a bear. I’ve seen Zombeavers and I can tell you that it’s hilariously awesome. I’ll be seeking out Backcountry to watch very soon. Creature features are my favorite sub-genre of horror after slasher films (with my soft spot being for aquatic horror…I love those!), so I got to thinking about how creature features are pretty much the least-liked out of all horror genres (mostly thanks to Asylum films and SyFy Original Movies). After a rather extensive search through Wikipedia’s list of “Natural Horror” films (clearly, I’m very thorough with my research), I came across some that I’ve seen that I either a) completely forgot existed and remembered liking or b) really like and feel like I don’t see enough people talk about. Let’s see what made the cut!
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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