If you’ve seen one paranormal movie, you’ve probably seen them all but like a sucker, I still get excited over the previews and convince myself “this has to be better than (insert awful paranormal movie name here). Once in a great while, I’m proven wrong but this is not the case for The Apparition.
The movie begins in the ’70s as group of paranormal psychologists conduct an experiment to try to communicate with a recently deceased colleague named Charles (the experiment would later go on to be cleverly named… The Charles Experiment). The table shakes without the group touching it and in the end, we see a shadowy figure in the background in a photograph of the group but it seems like the experiment was more like a game with the Ouija board… nothing really happened and no one got hurt.
Years later, a group of college students get the brilliant idea to repeat the experiment and record it. Patrick (Tom Felton) the mastermind of the group, leads the experiment and when things get a little more intense than just some table shaking, he calls for the rest of his group to get out fast. Lights flicker, a ball of energy is bouncing around the room and when Ben (Sebastian Stan) shines the camera light on another member of the group, Lydia, he sees her being pulled into the air by an unseen force. Guess you could say the experiment didn’t go so well.
In present time, Ben is now an electronic technician who is living with his girlfriend Kelly (Ashley Greene). The young couple just moved into a house owned by Kelly’s mother in a brand new development. It would appear that the nightmare is over for Ben until strange things start happening in their love nest.
Doors opening by themselves, a closet that was just neat and organized a second ago is now completely destroyed, the black mold that started to develop in a brand new house and then there was the death of the neighbors dog. The dog wandered into their house one day and found its way into the laundry room. It started staring at the wall and growling then all of a sudden had trouble breathing. It isn’t long before the couple decides that something is in the house.
Patrick has been emailing Ben for a while after the experiment, in fact he sends Ben a video of a second experiment. Kelly was unaware of Ben’s past life and even finds a video on his computer that shows exactly what happened to Lydia (and it’s pretty messed up). After reaching out to Patrick for help, he ominously tells the couple “the house isn’t haunted, you are”.
The ending gets pretty confusing for a bit, after a long night of running from the evil apparition, Kelly finds her way into a Costco and into the camping section where she proceeds to crawl into a tent and zip up. Maybe she bored herself to sleep with this movie? If you’re looking for a paranormal movie to watch, my suggestion is to spend your money on something else. If Greene is looking to launch her career now that the Twilight series is over, she’s off to a rough start.
The Toast 