Movies
New ‘Ghostbusters’ Trailer Reveals All the Spooks
Sony’s Columbia Pictures is attempting to block out the negative press by spreading a new trailer that’s littered with spooks.
There’s really nothing new in regards to the plot, other than learning that the Ghostbusters’ assistant, Kevin (Chris Hemsworth), gets possessed and becomes a tool for destruction.
But I digress, the trailer has a lot more CGI, and that’s clearly going to be one of the breaking point for fans. The more I see, the worse it looks, especially the ectoplasm tornado that just looks like green vomit sprayed across the sky.
Then there’s the ghosts (including Slimer), which are all revealed. Rowan, confirmed as the big baddie who looks like the Ghostbusters logo, appears to be the modern version of Stay Puft (see above).
“SNL” vet Neil Casey is the main Ghostbusters villain, Rowan, and was described as a convicted murderer who turns into a ghost after his execution is hit by a supercharged electrical storm. This gives him the power to raise an army of other ghosts, which could be made up of famous villains throughout history.
In the trailer we also catch a glimpse of him as a spook, which makes me think the logo ghost version of himself happens when he possibly possesses something with the actual logo on it.
There’s also a new shot of the villain Mayhem, who partakes in a really stupid joke at the concert we keep seeing footage from.
What bothers me the most about the film, in general, is that director Paul Feig has filmed cameos for many of the original Ghostbusters cast, including Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Ernie Hudson, Annie Potts, and even Sigourney Weaver. But they don’t play the same characters, which is just, I don’t know, stupid?
Anyways, there are some readers who are excited for this, and it’s unfair to condemn is completely without having seen it first. I will say this, though, we have kept our coverage to the absolute minimum. If anything, I’m really interested in seeing how all the negative hype affects the box office for the film. How powerful is our collective voice if people still vote “yes” with their wallets? There’s going to be a lot to take away from this when it hits theaters come July.
The worst cane scenario? We at least get to drink Ecto Cooler for an entire summer…
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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