Movie Review: The Apparition

The Apparition is a movie I will admit to being interested in. At the same time, I cannot say i was expecting all that much from it. Turns out that is a good thing as the movie proved to be awful. It is nothing more than a studio ploy to separate you from your money, and I fell for it. The movie is dull and does no give you much of anything to latch on to. It bypasses all of the story elements and goes right to the ghost stuff. Forget about having characters to care about or a haunting to actually be shared by, prepare for nothing.



This movie feels like a cross between Pulse and Paranormal Activity. I know this is not really a movie about the we of technology and gross coming through that way, but there is a bit about the apparition wanting something that we have, not unlike the ghosts in the machine of Pulse. So far as the Paranormal Activity comparison goes, well, you have a couple being subjected to lights going on and off and doors opening themselves, not unlike the happenings in that popular series. It is almost like first time writer/director Todd Lincoln wanted to recreate the atmosphere of Paranormal Activity without the constraints of the found footage style.

The movie starts with old footage of an attempt to communicate with someone on the other side. The end result was a picture with a ghostly apparition standing with them. The time then shifts closer to the present. A group of college students attempt to recreate that decades old experiment. Something goes wrong and one of their number is sucked intro some sort of moldy vortex never to be seen or heard from again.

The timeline shifts to the present and one of those involved in the college experiment, Ben (Sebastian Stan), is moving into a new home with his girlfriend, Kelly (Ashley Greene). They are happy and Ben has put the experiment in his past; however, strange things begin happening. Lights turn on, furniture moves, doors open, all without anyone being around. Then mold appears under the linoleum and on the ceiling.

One of Ben's experiment mates, Patrick (Tom Felton), gets ahold of him and les him know that whatever they were messing with got out. Now they ave to find a way to survive before the apparition gets them.

What can I say about this thing? It is a short movie, not even watching 85-minutes, and this short run never allows us to get a hold on these characters. I never felt anything for them or their plight, we are just dumped into the middle of things happening to them and when the end comes, I was grateful for the conclusion. And that ending? Ugh. It just sort of stops. I like the idea behind it, but it just falls flat.

I think my biggest disappointment in the movie is that the idea being sold in the trailers is not the movie I saw. There is the idea that the apparitions are creations of the mind, the believe it and you die bit. That is not what his movie is about. The idea of belief never really comes into the equation, there may be a bit of lip service paid to the idea, but it doesn't hold any water when put next to the actual content of the movie.

I guess you can say the performances are all right, but the movie has nothing for them to really work with. It is boring and the story never offers much in the way of substance. I did not care one iota what happened to them. Why? I was ne'er given a reason to. There is a severe lack of communication between the two and when bits of information do come to light, no one asks any interesting questions.

This strikes me as a movie that was targeted to the teen crowd that doesn't care what they watch (I know not all teens are like this, but anecdotal evidence pushes me in that direction). I also get the idea get the impression that there may have been some studio meddling and a better movie might hae been left on the cutting room floor.

What I would like now is for someone to take the idea in the trailer and make a moie about that.

Not Recommended.