Movies
Teaser Trailer Debut: ‘Saw 3D’, New Release Date!
Update: ‘Saw 3D’ will arrive in theaters October 29 to avoid a brutal battle with ‘Paranormal Activity 2’. They weren’t lying when they said they were saving the best for last. The teaser for Lionsgate’s Saw 3D has arrived online and displays a scope never before seen in the franchise. How big will the grand finale be? Hopefully massive. As I stated earlier, there’s hope as Saw VI director Kevin Greutert returns behind the camera for the seventh and (supposedly) final film in the franchise. The real questions is: when will it be remade? Let’s open the betting….
“This October, one of the biggest, most successful horror franchises in movie history arrives in theaters in vivid, chilling 3-D with the release of Lionsgate’s SAW VII 3-D.
As a deadly battle rages over Jigsaw’s brutal legacy, a group of Jigsaw survivors gathers to seek the support of self-help guru and fellow survivor Bobby Dagen, a man whose own dark secrets unleash a new wave of terror…
The first theatrical feature to be shot exclusively on the cutting-edge SI-3D digital camera system, SAW VII 3-D brings the horrifying games of Jigsaw to life like never before. The film stars Tobin Bell, Cary Elwes, Costas Mandylor, Betsy Russell and Sean Patrick Flannery. SAW VII is directed by Kevin Greutert, produced by Oren Koules, Mark Burg and Gregg Hoffman. SAW VII 3D is a Lionsgate Release. Twisted Pictures Presents a Burg/Koules/Hoffman Production. ”
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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