Movies
Tom Felton Briefly Talks ‘The Apparition’
Harry Potter star Tom Felton has let a few details slip, emphasis on few, about his new horror thriller The Apparition. Filmed in the US and Berlin last year, the Todd Lincoln-directed ghost story stars Ashley Greene (The Twilight Saga), Sebastian Stan (Black Swan, The Covenent) and Tom Felton (Rise of the Planet of the Apes, Harry Potter franchise).
Draco Mal – sorry – Tom Felton spoke to Bloody Disgusting’s Maria Lewis ahead of release of the final instalment in the Harry Potter series. The 23-year-old Brit said he would describe The Apparition as a “psychological thriller” and “not a horror exactly.” The film follows a couple who are haunted by a supernatural presence unleashed during a college experiment.
Felton said he “can’t say too much” about the plot, except that he plays a supernatural expert the couple seek help from later in the film. He said the cast shot in Berlin for about a month in 2010 and he “fell in love with the city.”
“At home, I prefer a quiet night-in than going out,” he said.
“I live about 30 miles outside London, more country than city.
“I have a dog, I stay home at night, watch TV, play my guitar.
“In Berlin, I went out almost every night to see live music.
“It was quite a scene. I really enjoyed it.
“I fell in love with the place.”
In January Felton told the LA Times The Apparition is in the tradition of Flatliners. Although originally schedule for a September 9, 2011 release date Warner Bros. have pushed The Apparition back to an undetermined 2012 date.
Here’s the official plot crunch: “A couple are haunted by a supernatural presence that is unleashed during a college experiment.
When frightening events start to occur in their home, young couple Kelly (Ashley Greene) and Ben (Sebastian Stan) discover they are being haunted by a presence that was accidentally conjured during a university parapsychology experiment. The horrifying apparition feeds on their fear and torments them no matter where they try to run. Their last hope is an expert in the supernatural (Tom Felton), but even with his help they may already be too late to save themselves from this terrifying force…”
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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