Director: Waymon Boone
Writer: Mark S Allen, Howard Burd, Rob Rose (Screenplay)
Starring: Mena Suvari, Kevin Pollak, John Abrahams, Megan West, Grayson Russell, Annalisa Cochrane, Matthew Barnes, Jason Woods
Plot: A group of young people, guided by an app which connects living with the dead, find themselves at an abandoned castle. A place with a horrific history tied to each of them, for reasons they’ll soon discover.
Tagline – Reform School
Runtime: 1 Hour 23 Minutes
There may be spoilers in the rest of the review
Verdict: Badly Drawn Out
Story: Apparition starts as we see the horrific actions done by Warden White (Pollak) and his guards in a children’s correctional facility, move forward 20 years, the children of the warden and the guards, Taylor (West), Sam (Russell), Skyler (Cochrane), Derek (Barnes) and Nate (Woods) are celebrating a wedding, where Sam has created a new app which can communicate with the dead.
With the first journey taking the friends to find a lost necklace, a moment of happiness, only for the second journey taking Skylar back to the correctional castle, now abandoned, where it doesn’t take long before the group start splitting up and experiencing horror experiences that bring to life the truth about their past.
Thoughts on Apparition
Characters – Anna is the housekeeper in the castle, she is meant to keep her mouth shut to keep a home for her child, only when she sees what is going on her position is put under threat. Warden White is very strict, he runs the correctional home where anything can go, which sees just how far he will let his guards go, 20 years later his son is about to get married and his is proud of this big day. Skyler is on the eve of her wedding day which is becomes clear she isn’t that happy with the man she is marrying, her journey takes her to the castle to learn about what happened to her father. Sam is the one that created the app, the son of the warden often considered the outsider of the group.
Performances – Mena Suvari is the biggest name in the film, she does start strong only for not being that involved in the film, much like Kevin Pollak who could have been a lot more menacing in the film. The rest of the cast just don’t get a chance to evolve their characters, which is the biggest problem in this film.
Story – The story follows five friends that start investigating an abandoned castle where their parents once worked only to learn the horrific truth about the history there. On paper this could have been an interesting story, it is based on the horrors that really happened, only for us to be thrown into a weak introduction to characters, who just spend about five minutes in a haunted location before it just being constant jump scares through noises, it might have an ending that makes sense, it is just getting there which is badly drawn out because we just don’t get enough focus on why the horrors happen, even though it can be explained.
Horror – The horror in this film is mostly just the friends walking around having lots of ghosts jumping out at them, it isn’t the most inspired style for horror to happen.
Settings – The film is mostly set in the castle correctional location, with first seeing what the boys were put through and secondly seeing what happens to the friends who visit the abandoned.
Special Effects – The effects are not strong either as they are used more for jumping out with creepy looking eyes.
Scene of the Movie – The truth.
That Moment That Annoyed Me – The characters are just dull.
Final Thoughts – This is a bad horror that doesn’t give the characters enough developments to justifying how everything unfolds leaving us shrugging our shoulders at anything that happens.
Overall: Poor Horror.
