Movies
RUMOR: Milla Jovovich to Topline ‘Clock Tower’?
Queue this one under rumor for now, but what our regular tipster has told us is that Milla Jovovich (pictured inside) is now set to play Alyssa Barron in Senator Entertainment and The Weinstein Company’s Clock Tower, the adaptation of the best-selling survival horror videogame franchise from Capcom (Resident Evil, Street Fighter). We have NOT confirmed this, so watch this spot for an update. Jovovich has starred in films such as THE FIFTH ELEMENT, the RESIDENT EVIL franchise, ULTRAVIOLET and will be appearing in THE 4TH KIND and A PERFECT GETAWAY. Shooting is scheduled for November in Los Angeles. Read on for a much more details synopsis.
Time stands still at the old Hamilton Inn. On its grounds, a town once took vengeance on a brutal killer – displaying his body from the ghostly hands of the Inn’s ominous clock tower for all to see. Known only as the “Scissor Man,” the killer’s years of silence are about to be broken by a beautiful college coed with a terrifying connection to the old hotel. When 18-year old Alyssa Barron receives a haunting phone call from her estranged birth mother on the eve of her summer vacation, she will find herself almost unwittingly drawn toward the rundown inn and the secret of a mother, a family, and a murder too horrifying to be real. Coming face-to-face with the “Scissor Man” one last time, Alyssa will trade in every luxury of her new life to make one last desperate bid for survivalbefore her time is up!
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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