Movies
Lizzy Caplan To Learn A Thing Or Two About ‘Warm Bodies’
As time goes by it’s becoming evident that Jonathan Levine is one of the brighter emerging talents in Hollywood. I loved The Wackness, have heard great things about 50/50 and am eagerly awaiting a world where All The Boys Love Mandy Lane is widely, and legally, available.
So even though I’m sick of zombies it’s hard not to be excited about his take on the genre, Warm Bodies. Yesterday we heard that John Malkovich had joined the already impressive cast of Nicholas Hoult, Rob Corddry and Theresa Palmer.
And now we’re told that Lizzy Caplan (Mean Girls, Cloverfield, “Party Down” and 127 Hours) is now in “final talks” to join the cast as well. I’ve always liked her work and am stoked to see all of these people under Levine’s wing.
Based on the book by Isaac Marion the story “follows an existentially tormented zombie named “R” who begins an unlikely friendship with the girlfriend of one of his victims. It starts a chain reaction that will transform him, his fellow zombies, and maybe the whole undead world.”
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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