Editorials
The 13 Most Disturbing Horror Movie Moments of 2016!
Breaking an Arm – Green Room
Jeremy Saulnier’s follow-up to Blue Ruin is a wild thrill ride that never stops. After a punk rock band witnesses a murder in a dive bar owned by a bunch of Nazis (led by Patrick Stewart), they hole themselves up in the films titular location and try to survive. One of those attempts goes horribly awry when they crack open the door during a conversation with Stewart’s villain. This turns out to be a terrible decision, as Pat (the late Anton Yelchin) has his arm severed at the wrist. As if that visual wasn’t bad enough, the snapping sound another character’s arm makes when it is broken is even worse.
Sophie’s Choice – The Other Side of the Door
The Other Side of the Door came and wend without any fanfare back in March, and while it isn’t a great film, it’s a serviceable supernatural thriller with one of the most idiotic protagonists ever put in film. That being said, the film’s first act contains a harrowing flashback scene in which the Maria (The Walking Dead‘s Sarah Wayne Callies) drives her car into a body of water with her son and daughter strapped in the back seat. With no time to save both of her children, she chooses to save her daughter before she is pulled out of the water. She must then watch her car sink with her son still trapped inside. It’s a breathtaking sequence that is scarier than any of the ghouls that pop up later in the film.
Not that Kind of Baby Shower – Bite
Word to the wise: don’t watch Bite while you’re eating. In the film, Casey (Elma Begovic) returns home from a bachelorette party in Costa Rica with a strange bite on her leg. In the days that follow she slowly begins to become more and more bug-like. The below scene is actually a dream sequence, but it doesn’t stop it from being any less gross. As Casey walks into a surprise baby shower, hundreds of orange bug eggs fall out of her vagina and pile onto the floor. It’s very gooey.
The Rules of Real Estate – I Am the Pretty Thing That Lives in the House
“I have heard myself say that house with a death in it can never again be bought or sold by the living. It can only be borrowed from the ghosts who have stayed behind.” So says Lily (Ruth Wilson) who we learn will not make it to the end of the film alive. The opening sequence in Osgood (son of Anthony) Perkins’s I Am the Pretty Thing That Lives In the House is not disturbing so much as it is haunting. Lily’s chilling monologue goes on for over two minutes as a ghostly figure slowly moves across the pitch black screen. It sets the tone for the rest of the film and, in its simplicity, sends a chill down the spine.
Up Next: A Turkey Baster, a Demon and One Dead Baby
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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