Editorials
Trace’s 10 Most Disappointing Horror Movies of the Year
1. Paranormal Activity: The Ghost Dimension
Yeesh. I’m not sure there’s much more I can say about the supposedly final installment in the Paranormal Activity franchise that I didn’t already state in my review, but I’ll try. I’m not a huge Paranormal Activity fan, but I like the franchise well enough. I will never understand how a film studio can take a franchise that has spawned so many films and be so lazy with the sixth and again, supposedly final entry (I’m also looking at you, Saw). Why bring in a new family this late in the game? Why leave Katie out of the movie completely? Why put it in 3D? There are a plethora of other questions that could be asked about this movie, but it’s best we just put it behind us and pretend that the first 3 films are their own trilogy and no other Paranormal Activity films ever came after them.
What films disappointed you this year? The beauty of a post like this is that we all have vastly different expectations about the movies we are going to see, so enlighten me and let me know in the comments below or shoot me a Tweet!
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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