Movies
FanTasia ’10: First Images From ‘Jack Brooks’ Director’s ‘The Shrine’
Having its world premiere at this month’s FanTasia Film Festival (July 8-28) in Montreal is Jon Knautz’s The Shrine, his follow-up film to the ever so popular Jack Brooks: Monster Slayer. Starring Mr. Jack Brooks himself, Trevor Matthews, the horror pic is about a group of young journalists who investigate a cult said to practice human sacrifice – but their ambitious ways may lead them to becoming the cult’s next victims. Check out the first ever stills below!
“After a young American backpacker goes missing in Europe, a group of journalists link his disappearance to a remote Polish village called Alvaina. Upon further investigation, the journalists discover that Alvaina has a history of bizarre cult activity revolving around human sacrifice. Hellbent on revealing the truth, they travel to the small village to uncover the story first hand. But after the discovery of an ancient stone statue hidden within the town, they quickly find themselves pursued by a mysterious and vengeful group of locals. Forced into the gruesome reality of true survival horror, the journalists soon realize that Alvaina hides a much darker secret than they could ever imagine.”
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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