Critic Reviews
-
Ben Sachs, Chicago Reader
This horror movie from Warner Bros. is nothing special, but it's nice to see a modest genre entertainment buoyed by a major studio's resources.
-
Mark Feeney, Boston Globe
The entity is a ghostly presence amid an even ghostlier absence. This is truly distressed real estate.
-
Mark Olsen, Los Angeles Times
Something lacking either body heat or visceral suspense.
-
Frank Lovece, Newsday
For casual viewers desiring a few scares, some suspense and a sustained sense of dread and malevolence, you could do worse.
-
Andy Webster, New York Times
Lights flicker; soap and cactuses blacken; claw marks appear; icky molds gather like hornet nests.
-
Keith Staskiewicz, Entertainment Weekly
Might give you a restless night, but only because you fell asleep in the theater.
-
Steve Newton, Georgia Straight
This new supernatural thriller by first-time director Todd Lincoln has stinker written all over it. In indelible ink.
-
Walter Chaw, Film Freak Central
The apparition, because it's lame, spends a lot of its time tying clothes into knots, moving dressers, and opening doors.
-
William Bibbiani, CraveOnline
When I finally get around to writing a textbook, this is going to be one of my primary examples of how not to make a horror movie.
-
John J. Puccio, Movie Metropolis
Instead of a genuine story line, 'The Apparition' asks us to sit and wait for something to happen. And wait. And wait. (Blu-ray edition)
-
John J. Puccio, Movie Metropolis
I like a good ghost story, but 'The Apparition' is nothing like a good ghost story. It's more like a Syfy Channel show where they try to scare people in a darkened room.
-
Brent Simon, Screen International
A thinly sketched paranormal thriller stripped almost bare of anything that might provide some color, complication or personality.
-
Kofi Outlaw, ScreenRant
The Apparition is a rare example of filmmaking failure that is so complete, it will exacerbate its audience in nearly every way possible.
-
Matt Joseph, We Got This Covered
Every fo paux The Apparition commits stems from a general atmosphere lacking any vibrant heartbeat, creating characters and conflicts which are tragically birthed on life support.
-
Glenn Lovell, CinemaDope
Todd Lincoln, in his directorial debut, shows the restraint of a young Val Lewton. Things go bad oh-so-slowly ...
-
Marc Savlov, Austin Chronicle
When you look into this abyss, it yawns back at you.
-
John Beifuss, Commercial Appeal (Memphis, TN)
Plants wither and furniture is rearranged, as if the demon were an inconsiderate housesitter.
-
Chris Stuckmann, Moviedex
The whole ordeal only lasts 82 minutes, but that's still too long for a film with no ambition aside from lightening your wallet.
-
Peg Aloi, Boston Phoenix
Doesn't offer anything new, let alone entertaining.
-
Jackie K. Cooper, jackiekcooper.com
A run of the mill horror flick that gets worse and worse as it progresses
Read all 21 critic reviews
Featured Audience Ratings
-
What director/writer Todd Lincoln is mostly missing here is the originality. While these days it is certainly hard to create anything fresh or not recycle same ideas again and again, you could still use better visual sense than Lincoln uses with his pointless and hollow The… More
What director/writer Todd Lincoln is mostly missing here is the originality. While these days it is certainly hard to create anything fresh or not recycle same ideas again and again, you could still use better visual sense than Lincoln uses with his pointless and hollow The Apparition.
The whole idea for this film is silly and the few scares it has own their debt to other better films and especially J-horror masterpiece Pulse. There were moments when there was true sense of dread in the air and some scenes do have feel uneasiness in them, but most of the time this film seems to be in autopilot. Lincoln's approach is visually flat and in the final third when the suspense should be rising it all just gets kinda boring and duller than expected.
The Apparition also suffers from a weak screenplay. Basically this film just ends up being a story about a entity which does want to break into our world. That is the deepest we get with the story. We do learn that it has something to do with electricity and black fungus but that's about it. When the film reached it's weak conclusion i just felt confused and disappointed.
This film could have been turned out something so much better than it ended to be. Production values are mostly quite good but what do you need them for if the screenplay does not work at all. The Apparition has nothing new to offer for the fans of horro genre.
-
"Apparition" is the type of movie that makes you appreciate other movies, that you otherwise take for granted. This is kind of like "Paranormal Activity", only with a budget and zero of the creativity. "Activity" may not be a great horror movie, but… More
"Apparition" is the type of movie that makes you appreciate other movies, that you otherwise take for granted. This is kind of like "Paranormal Activity", only with a budget and zero of the creativity. "Activity" may not be a great horror movie, but when it came out it was inventive and unique. This is a rip off, and a very bad one at that. It's about a couple who are haunted in their home by a presence that was summoned during a college experiment. The acting is horrible, the story is generic, and the execution is poor. There is long stretches of just "spooky" music that doesn't move the story along, or provide any real suspense. All this movie made me want to do was re-watch the first "Paranormal Activity". If your a fan of horror or movies in general, you will probably be disappointed with this.
-
-
-
I'm not gonna beat around the bush. This is the worst horror film I've ever seen. It's so bad that apparently it's been released in only about 600 movie theaters. Just when I thought 2012 was starting to look good for movies...The Apparition is about this couple… More
I'm not gonna beat around the bush. This is the worst horror film I've ever seen. It's so bad that apparently it's been released in only about 600 movie theaters. Just when I thought 2012 was starting to look good for movies...The Apparition is about this couple who live in a haunted house and they call in some guy to help them. Boom, that's it, nothing original, nothing inspired. The plot of the movie is so bad and lazy. The overall story couldn't get anymore cliched. The couple experience stuff that's suppose to be scary, but it's just annoying because of how repetetive it gets. Most of the movie is just people hearing noises and screaming "OH MY GOD! WHAT WAS THAT?!" So in case you're wondering, yes, it is just another episode of Ghost Hunters. The acting in the film is just terrible. Not one good performance, not even from Tom Felton. I actually feel bad fo him though. He's gotten off the success of Harry Potter and Rise of the Planet of the Apes, now he's in this piece of shit and to be honest, he looked liked he didn't even want to be a part of this movie. The thing is the film is just under an hour an a half, but it felt like a whole 2 hours when watching this movie. Just about every scene just drags on and on as it tries to build suspense, but it just ends up being a bunch cheap set ups with no pay-off. The only scary thing about this movie is the fact that it was actually allowed to be made. I can't even imagine what the screenwriter must've been thinking when he came up with this. It just blows my mind how uninspired and boring this film is. I'm also going to give away the ending of the movie since I doubt if anyone cares by this point, but if you don't want spoilers, then stop reading. The very last shot of the movie also happens to be the poster for the movie AND the last shot of the trailer. When the arms are grabbing the girl from behind is when the movie ends. I wasn't expecting anything special considering how much the rest of the film sucked, but it just pissed me off that the ending of the movie was shown to the public before it was even released. When it comes to bad movies, I'd suggest you see it just so you can experience how bad it really is. But with this movie, you should just avoid it. I don't care of you see a commercial of it where the guy says it's the number one movie in America or there's just a bunch of fake reviews praising the movie. Do not see this movie. It's easily one of the worst movies of 2012 and it needs to be forgotten.
-
Every minute I kept saying... seems legit.
-
An experiment by three college kids unleashes a supernatural presence which follows one (Stan) to the new home he's moved into with his girlfriend (Greene).
There's been a wave of haunted house flicks lately and they've all been bad but this is by far the worst of the… More
An experiment by three college kids unleashes a supernatural presence which follows one (Stan) to the new home he's moved into with his girlfriend (Greene).
There's been a wave of haunted house flicks lately and they've all been bad but this is by far the worst of the bunch. Like 'The Possession', it's setting is a ghost estate but as with that movie it does nothing to exploit this backdrop. The terrifying supernatural force in this case takes the form of a patch of damp. Even the characters involved don't seem too scared by events and the viewer certainly won't be. It's very easy to make a bad horror movie but it's quite an achievement to make one as dull as this turkey. Were it not for the presence of actors associated with 'Harry Potter' and 'Twilight', I doubt this would have seen the light of day.
-
This was descent. It had a few pretty good scenes here and there, but overall, the story was weak and the acting was horrible. Wish I could've liked it a bit better...
-
Besides a good enough showing from actor Tom Felton and some eye-candy from the could-be talented Ashley Greene, "The Apparition" fails to become much bigger than itself, losing its unique content to an isolated and under-utilized presence. With more static shots of an… More
Besides a good enough showing from actor Tom Felton and some eye-candy from the could-be talented Ashley Greene, "The Apparition" fails to become much bigger than itself, losing its unique content to an isolated and under-utilized presence. With more static shots of an everyday house and neighborhood (including tons of power-lines, for some unexplained reason) than anything else, this horror film holds very few scares and those that are present are complete rip-offs of films like "The Ring", "The Grudge", and "Paranormal Activity".
-
HELP! I'VE BEEN ROBBED! This movie took my $7 and ran. FAST. The Apparition is so incredibly unoriginal, uninspired, inconsistent and most poorly written, directed and acted, that I'm almost at a loss for words. Almost. Even the sets weren't scary or interesting. It was… More
HELP! I'VE BEEN ROBBED! This movie took my $7 and ran. FAST. The Apparition is so incredibly unoriginal, uninspired, inconsistent and most poorly written, directed and acted, that I'm almost at a loss for words. Almost. Even the sets weren't scary or interesting. It was too bright, it was too dark. Nobody seemed to know what they were going for.
This mushy movie that has no real direction, and it's explained as such in the film, is just a copy and dumbing down of so many other horror movies. It's almost a cross between an idea for an alien movie and horror film. There are no aliens and it's not scary. There is exactly one intense scene that is a direct rip-off of The Ring. The rest of the time I was bored to tears. So bored, in fact, that I spent part of the movie being grateful that I don't have hemorrhoids, otherwise it would have been quite a bit more uncomfortable.
What confused me, though, is why this junker could even make it to theaters with no big names attached to it. You can't really blame the actors, since they were given NOTHING to work with. And if this is the best editing could do, I can only imagine what they were given to work with. But it's not like they had quality editors with a list of good movies they've done. I would not want my name attached to this. The good news is that writer/director Todd Lincoln couldn't do a worse job. I could do just as well, and I have no idea how to make a horror movie.
I'm not saying anyone shouldn't see this movie, I'm begging you not to. There is nothing of substance here.
Read all 10 featured audience ratings
Also available on
UltraViolet Retailers
Other Retailers
Subscription Services