Movies
New Trailer for ‘Don’t Breathe’ Released
A new international trailer for Fede Alvarez’s Don’t Breathe has been released and can be seen below. However, judging from the YouTube comments (because I didn’t watch it), the trailer gives away a ton of stuff from the film, so I’d recommend avoiding it altogether, especially because the trailers so far have been quite liberal with what they choose to reveal.
Related: [Event Report] Fede Alvarez’s Trailer Launch Event for ‘Don’t Breathe’
Three teens who get away with perfectly planned home robberies have set their sights on one last payout that will get them out of crime forever. Their target: a reclusive blind man with millions of dollars in hiding. But as soon as they break into his home, the tables are turned and they find themselves trapped and fighting for survival against a psychopath with secrets of his own.
Alvarez and Rodo Sayagues wrote the script for the project, which is produced by Sam Raimi and Rob Tapert for Ghost House Pictures. J.R. Young, Nathan Kahane, Joe Drake and Erin Westerman executive produce. It stars Jane Levy, Daniel Zovatto, Dylan Minnette, and Stephen Lang.
Don’t Breathe opens on August 26th.
Editorials
Taking a Closer Look at the ‘Christmas Carol’ Ghosts of Ti West’s ‘Ebenezer’
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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