Movies
The Darker Side of Horror Romance in ‘Elevator Men’
First announced back in February, today the official details have been released for Elevator Men, a new thriller that follows a single mom in pursuit of Mr. Right who ends up meeting a horrific creature in human guise. The good news is that the project will take a “less romanticized” look at the human-vampire interactions depicted in such recent movies and series as Summit’s Twilight and HBO’s “True Blood.”
Summit Entertainment is in the process of scooping up former DreamWorks exec Marc Haimes’ original screenplay Elevator Men — the dark thriller will likely will change titles.
“It’s a reaction to all of these stories now — TV shows and movies — that play this kind of romantic, fantastical, sexy aspect of getting involved with monsters,” Haimes said. “This is the dark, sinister version of what really happens when you decide you’re going to get close to really bad things. That fantasy element is something I wanted to look at and play the exact opposite: the grim reality of bedding down with a monster.” The creatures play diabolical mind games with people, including one that involves an elevator, hence the title.
Sounds like a little Clive Barker Hellraiser going on in there. I’m quite excited to see what they turn out.
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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