The Apparition

True to its title, 'The Apparition' arrives almost too quietly in cinemas this week – though rather than being a marketing gimmick like how the first 'Paranormal Activity' built its cult status, there is a much more straightforward reason why this low-budget B-grade horror flick has come without any fanfare. It is flat out bad, no less than bottom of the barrel stuff, even if you approach it with the kind of lowered standards you typically take to such fly-by-night productions from Joel Silver's Dark Castle Entertainment or Sam Raimi's Ghost House Pictures.

Indeed, it is from the former that this first-time feature by writer/director Todd Lincoln hails from, and suffice to say that despite being bestowed the rare honour of shouldering dual responsibilities on this film, it is unlikely that Lincoln will find himself with similar luck soon. His 'Apparition' shows none of the ingenuity or even coherence of Oren Peli's 'Paranormal Activity', one of the few horror classics that he tries to emulate in the course of a muddled and practically nonexistent plot.

After setting the scene with a 1970s séance experiment where a group of researchers used their minds to conjure the spirit of a lost colleague back into this world, the film opens with a similar procedure carried out by three amateur parapsychology students - Patrick (Tom Felton), Ben (Sebastian Stan), and Lydia (Julianna Guill). Successful they may have been, their efforts have opened a portal for a spirit to grab Lydia back into the netherworld. Fast forward four years later, and the story picks up with Ben moving into a new house with his current girlfriend Kelly (Ashley Greene).

Playing like a teen friendly version of 'Paranormal Activity', strange occurrences start happening around their home, including the obligatory flickering lights, shadows in the dark and moving furniture. Then Lincoln remembers a certain horror movie he watched called 'Dark Water', and the said apparition begins appearing as a black mouldy patch on the ceilings and below the linoleum floors. Further on, Lincoln recalls 'Ju- On' and the apparition turns into a black-skinned long-haired girl moving on all fours. But more frustrating than its derivativeness is how lethargic the whole affair is.

Never once do you feel that the threat to Kelly or Ben is real, nor in fact do you care for their predicament. That's partly because Lincoln doesn't know how to build tension even with a brief 75 minutes running time (sans the protracted end credits), and partly because the actors involved look plain uninvolved. And really how do you identify with characters who spout lines as inane as – "Our house is too new to be haunted. It has no history." – or the utter obvious like – "Your house isn't haunted. You are."?

It is also too daft to realise its own stupidity, pretending to be much smarter than it really is by reintroducing science into the mix about half an hour before the picture's end with a lot of mambo-jumbo about electromagnetic waves and reversing polarity. In truth, the science in the movie is bullshit, and the more it tries to act intelligent about it, the sillier it comes off. Finally, when it has one of its characters Patrick urgently say that the apparition is some entity even older and more sinister than demons, you know that it is just grabbing at straws to try to reinstate its credibility.

The only consolation you get is that its ending is as terrible as you expect it to – since the rest of movie is already that atrocious, no climax however bad can be considered a copout. No wonder then that 'The Apparition' has emerged like a ghost into theatres, without publicity and without any press previews. It has but one aim – to lure unsuspecting moviegoers hoping to have a ghost of a scare before 'Paranormal Activity 4' swings around for Halloween - and the only scare it will offer is how shockingly inept it is. Yes, you won't find much of a movie here, just an apparition of several much more superior classics that have come before it.

If you are true horror fan you have most likely come to terms with the fact that a "Great" horror film is fairly rare nowadays. For the most part in the horror world all we get is remakes, reboots, and sequels. When we finally do get a stand alone movie it is easy to say that it will most likely just be an average movie (especially with ghost movies).

I for one am far past expecting horror films to scare me, so I was not very disappointed when I realized "The Apparition" was not going to be scary. There isn't really much scary stuff out there that hasn't already been done in some other film, so it is incredibly hard to surprise audiences with good scares. Nothing in this movie is going to really catch you of guard or makes you shiver with fear, but you will most likely be entertained through out.

The story is interesting enough, I never really found myself bored or wanting the film to end. It is also very short, which is actually a good thing in this case, since if it would have gone on for much longer I probably would have started to get fairly bored.

I see people saying this film is terrible, boring, horrible, etc. I wouldn't really call it any of those things. Its very average, and as long as you go into this expecting that you will not be letdown. It won't be a film you will rush out and suggest to your friends, but it is still entertaining nonetheless and if you find yourself bored on a Friday night this will do a good job of occupying a little over an hour of your time.

5/10

The Apparition (2012)

* (out of 4)

The horror film Warner tried to sneak into theaters and hope no one noticed it. Sadly, I noticed it but thankfully it was only a $5 show (which was still a rip). Couple Kelly (Ashley Greene) and Ben (Sebastian Stan) arrive in a new home only to discover strange things happening. Kelly is all confused but apparently Ben recognizes this "haunting" due to an experiment he did in college where one of his best friends mysteriously vanished. While watching THE APPARITION my mind started to go back to the mid 90's before SCREAM came along and the horror genre was just delivering some pretty awful movies. This here reminded me of one of them because there's really nothing going right in this picture, which starts with an incredibly boring and unscary pre-credits sequence and sadly things just get worse from here. I'm sure in the writing stages people get an idea, look over it, make changes, take away the bad and add some good. They re-work the process until they come up with a story that they can work with. It really does seem that this film just took the first bad idea and filmed it so that they could get anything in a theater before Halloween. The entire story here is just simply bad, laughable and there were times where I just wanted to walk out on it. The entire situation is something I'll avoid spoiling for those who do decide to see the film but it all adds up to a half-baked idea that never works and the ending is just downright stupid. I'd say the studio should be thankful that no one is watching this or else it would probably be getting some heat. The performances aren't anything to write home about but I enjoyed Greene for the most part. THE APPARITION is obviously trying to follow in the PARANORMAL ACTIVITY foot steps but there's not a single scare to be had here.

I watched this movie last night with low expectations. Those expectations were definitely met. Part of the problem is that the chemistry between the two leads just isn't there. Ashley Greene looks smokin hot throughout the film but her partner and her just don't ever seem like they are a real couple so you never really believe in the story. The parts that try to be tense and scary fail to get you feeling any tension. The one scene I did like was in the hotel room but again this could have been done better. All in all a pretty poor film. If you like this type of film i highly recommend the Conjuring instead. That is a far better film.

It's a decent angle at a haunting, but the writing is just not good.

It has a good cast. It has good looking shots and special FX. The trailer drew me in. They did good with that. There are some really clever things in the movie, like how the furniture was rearranged in the room, literally. That was cool. But the story is just poorly written.

It isn't the worst movie out there, as some others have said. That's silly. I have seen much worse! But I give it a generous 5 stars for production value. The movie is not worth watching other than for educational purposes, in my humble opinion. Sorry guys. But a different script with the same production team could have much better results.