Movies
‘Resident Evil: Retribution’s’ Unknown Giant Creature
I’m expecting a pretty huge movie considering how long they’ve been filming Resident Evil: Retribution. And even if it’s the norm for a big budget action-horror flick, it feels like an eternity in covering all of star Milla Jovovich’s tweets and video blogs. This morning she dropped a pretty big bomb via the following lengthy tweet:
“Gmornin every1 where it’s morning! Gevening to all those where it’s evening! There’s a HUGE wire stunt 2day here at camp evil as guess what?! Im not allowed 2 do it! Aargh! It’s a 50 ft. Fly on a wire rig w a flip AND gunfire (sob) to kill a c, but the set is too tight and my incredible stunt double -Jo Anne Leach- has to land in2 crash pads 2 make it and the insurance company and my husband said Absolutely NOT. I’m bummed but there u go. Safety first.the sequence is gonna KILL tho n no matter what Jo is my girl and she’s THE BEST, so trust me when u c it in the film it will b overwhelmingly awe inspiring! That’s my news of the morning. Gotta get hair n make up on.”
When she says “gynormous creature” I can only hope she means “a creature as tall as Godzilla”. After five Resident Evil films, it would be nice to see writer/director Paul W.S. Anderson think outside the box for once.
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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