So, is something, like, gonna happen or what?
The Lowdown: One of the worst horror movies ever. The Apparition hits the bottom of the cinematic barrel so hard that it smashes through it and creates a new bottom. The only thing good about it is that aspiring directors can watch it and learn how not to make a horror movie.1. The Plot: Ok, so in the 1970s, some paranormal researchers tried to summon the spirit of a dead guy named Charles, so the experiment became known as “The Charles Experiment”. No, I’m not joking, but feel free to laugh. Anyways, in the present day, some college students decide to recreate the experiment for no real reason, and something goes horribly wrong (tables shake, a girl gets dragged away by an unseen force. You know, the usual). A few years later, Ben (Sebastian Stan) and Kelly (Ashley Greene) move into a new home trying to get a new start on life. However, once they move in, creepy, inexplicable things begin to happen around the house. A strange mold begins to grow everywhere, security cameras all go out simultaneously, the furniture moves by itself, and at one point, Kelly’s clothes are all found twisted into knots or shredded. Even the hangers are twisted up. Oh no! Whatever will Kelly do without clothing to wear?
Why, pander to the PG-13 audience, of course!
Anyways, we find out that Ben was one of the college kids trying to recreate the Charles Experiment, and that the girl who disappeared when they did it was Ben’s ex-girlfriend, or something. I don’t really know since it’s not really explained and serves no purpose in the story. Ben contacts Patrick (Tom Felton), one of the other college kids, who he finds out has continued experimenting and has somehow made everything worse (he further opened up the portal, or something lame like that). Now, they all have to work together to stop the ghost/spirit/whatever using “reverse EEG” or some bullshit like that. I’m just going to say this. If you can make sense of the above plot, then you win a bag of invisible cookies.2. The Characters: The Apparition features some of the dumbest characters I’ve seen in a horror movie. Ben and Kelly, played by Sebastian Stan (Captain America) and Ashley Greene (the Twilight films), don’t really do anything during the whole film except stand around and stare at things. When creepy stuff is happening around their house, all they do is stare at the creepy things for a long time with a quizzical expression on their faces. Where’s the physical reaction? There’s one scene where they wake up in the middle of the night to find all the doors in the house open, and they don’t immediately spring into action and begin shutting the doors and searching the house for intruders. No, they slowly walk to each door, look around, mutter a few lines, and then close them. This scene lasts for an eternity, and since nothing actually happens (there isn’t even a glimpse of a ghost), all of the tension gets lost.
It's called acting, Ashley. It's called making facial expressions. EMOTE, DAMMIT!
The only other character is Patrick, played by Tom Felton (the Harry Potter films). I guess Felton hasn’t been having the same kind of success as the other Potter actors, and is now appearing in drivel like The Apparition. Patrick doesn’t really do much of anything except dump a lot of meaningless exposition, and he only appears in the movie for like ten minutes. In fact, his last scene is of him getting dragged away by the paranormal whatever. It’s as if his agent was dragging him away from the film in order to protect his career from further damage.3. What the Heck is Happening? The Apparition is utterly incomprehensible. I’ve seen crappy horror movies with paper-thin plots, but even the most basic slasher film has a more coherent plot than this. In a slasher, a masked psychotic killer with some sharp implement is going around murdering people. That’s it. There’s no weird paranormal crap that’s supposed to have meaning. The biggest problem with The Apparition (aside from, like, everything) is the fact that it makes no sense at all. Let’s begin with the laughably-named “Charles Experiment”. Who is this Charles guy? What did he do? Why are these guys trying to summon his spirit? How are they doing it? None of these basic things are ever explained, presumably because the brilliant writers probably just wanted the viewer to know that he was “evil” and did “evil things” so we’re supposed to be creeped out by him on general principle. Also, it appears that Charles isn’t very good at being scary. When he’s haunting Ben and Kelly, he opens their doors at night. Ok…why? If he’s a spirit, isn’t he invisible? Can’t he just go through the doors? Oh, and he even moves their furniture. In one scene, Kelly is putting laundry into a dresser. When she turns to grab a pile of clothes, the dresser moves a few inches away so Kelly almost misses the drawer. Again, why? What purpose does this serve? Is this Charles guy really haunting this couple or teasing them? If all he’s going to do is kill Ben and Kelly in the end, then why not just kill them? There’s also Patrick, who plays Exposition Man and spews tons of meaningless, nonsensical dribble about how the experiment opened up spirit portals that are a bridge between the mortal and spirit worlds, and now Charles wants to suck in the souls of people because it will open up the portals more and let more evil spirits into the world. What the heck does any of that mean? Also, if he figured all this out, then why did he continue trying to recreate the experiment? Why did any of them even try to recreate this ridiculous experiment in the first place? AAAGGGHHH PLEASE JUST MAKE IT STOP!!!
So is something gonna fucking happen or what? MAKE SOMETHING HAPPEN!
The Bottom Line: The Apparition is terrible in every way. Of all the bland, boring, PG-13 horror movies I’ve seen, this one is probably the worst.The Apparition is property of Warner Bros., Dark Castle Entertainment, and StudioCanal. This review was written by me.
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