Apparition, The (2012) (1st viewing) d. Lincoln, Todd (USA)
Ashley Greene and Sebastian Stan star as an insufferably plucky couple, full of contemporary badinage and cutesy quarreling, who take up residence in her parents’ desert community subdivision. This lovely glass-and-adobe would-be dream home has the nasty propensity toward cultivating mold, mangling wooden hangers and leveling lovable canines (the latter’s aftermath yielding 2012’s unintentional laugh leader, “Your house killed my dog!”)
It’s clear that writer/director Lincoln would like this to serve as his generation’s Poltergeist – a film it clearly echoes in both setting and subject matter – but instead of moving cemetery headstones, the premise behind the supernatural hijinks lie in Stan’s former college crew’s wrongheaded attempt to recreate a celebrated parapsychological event. (Former Harry Potter alumnus Tom Felton is saddled with the unenviable task of spouting pseudo-scientific gobbledygook and exposition by the truckload, none of which chills or thrills.) Aside from few fresh ideas and images that deserved a better vehicle, Lincoln’s weak dialogue and “that was it?” ending are unlikely to satisfy anyone.
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