Movies
Super Small Rubber Monster Images from ‘Creature’
The filmmakers behind Creature just can’t win with me. I’ve been breathing down their necks since it was revealed that the film would be opening in “theaters everywhere” on September 9, a proclamation I still don’t believe to be true (unless of course by “everywhere” they mean “10 theaters”). August 29 edit: it WILL open in 1,500 screens, so I’m told.
Anyways, I won’t reiterate the alleged stories behind the film, but I will share with you the latest items that have my right eyebrow perking up in disbelief. This morning the first batch of official imagery was released, in the form of these peanut-sized stills. The only thing I could think was: “really?” Click the below pic for the full gallery of tiny photos.
“An ex-Navy seal, Niles (Mehcad Brooks), his girlfriend Emily (Serinda Swan) and their friends head out on a road trip to New Orleans. When the group decides to stop at a roadside convenience store owned by Chopper (Sid Haig) they are introduced to the legend of Lockjaw, a Creature who is part man, part alligator…The Legend has it that an inbred local man by the name of Grimley (Daniel Bernhardt), lost his family to a monstrous white alligator, and because of the devastating loss of his family was driven to madness and was transformed into the Creature. Their curiosity peaked, the group decides to head deeper into the swamps to check out the birthplace of this Creature legend. As they journey further into the backwoods the group arrives at an old dilapidated cabin and decide to camp there for the night and inadvertently unleash the Creature who terrorizes the group.”
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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