Movies
Exact Release Plans For Bryan Bertino’s ‘The Monster’
A24’s The Monster (read my review) will be available exclusively on DIRECTV on October 6th, and will be in theaters and On Demand on November 11th, Bloody Disgusting confirmed.
Originally titled There Are Monsters, the film was directed by Bryan Bertino, who was the writer, producer, and director of The Strangers, as well as the criminally underrated Mockingbird.
Starring Zoe Kazan (In Your Eyes, Fracture), Ella Ballentine (The Captive), Scott Speedman (Underworld), and Aaron Douglas (“Battlestar Galactica”), The Monster focuses on a mother and daughter who are trapped and tormented by a ruthless creature.
A24 has been kicking ass having been behind The Witch, Green Room, Swiss Army Man and the forthcoming The Blackcoat’s Daughter.
“Acclaimed horror filmmaker Bryan Bertino (THE STRANGERS) directs this suspenseful and scary new film, in which a divorced mother (Zoe Kazan) and her headstrong daughter must make an emergency late night road trip to see the girl’s father. As they drive through deserted country roads on a stormy night, they suddenly have a startling collision that leaves them shaken but not seriously hurt. Their car, however, is dead, and as they try in vain to get help, they come to realize they are not alone on these desolate backroads – a terrifying evil is lurking in the surrounding woods, intent on never letting them leave…
A chilling and tension-filled experience, THE MONSTER pits two ferociously strong women against one of the scariest and most shocking monsters you’ll ever see. It will be a battle no one will forget. ”
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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