Reviews of Films I Have Never Seen:
THE APPARITION – Horror Film Lacks Ominous Organ Music

A shocking breach of mood etiquette.

How could this happen?

Is it generational?

Nothing says ‘creepy’ like Toccata in D Minor rendered on the organ.

(You may have noted a fugue attached. But it’s not a scary fugue. In fact, it’s stuffed full of sixteenth notes which rank among the peppiest notes in the music kingdom.)

Back to Bach’s Baroque beauty which has cropped up in dozens of films when the director needed to say, ‘Isn’t this a scary place? I’ll bet you’re glad you don’t live here.’

But not Todd Lincoln. In his zeal to craft a post-modern film—based on his screenplay—he has amputated one of the prime ingredients of horror cinema—scary organ music.

Super. Just super.

Director Lincoln’s film is based on true events that occurred in the 1970s. A group of Toronto researchers attempted to create a ghost by thinking about it.

To their astonishment, the late Lionel Barrymore appeared in a ghost wheelchair and ran over one of the slower researchers. The study was cancelled.

In Lincoln’s work, parapsychology students gather in a house and attempt something similar. They encounter a terrifying entity.

Of course, without organ music to guide us, we’re marooned with only visual cues.

Years later, Kelly and Ben (Ashley Greene/Sebastian Stan) move in to the same house and encounter the same entity, though it has not paid any rent or picked up the place other than to stack pizza boxes on the back porch. The apparition torments the young couple by blurting out all the answers to Jeopardy!

Desperate, Kelly and Ben contact an expert in the supernatural (Tom Felton), who promises aid in defeating their supernatural foe and makes them sign a mechanic’s lien.

But without proper organ music this film remains as dry as Arabian toast.

A salute to executive director Sue Baden-Powell who could be related to the founder of the Boy Scouts, Lord Baden-Powell.

Or else, she chose her last name from Mount Baden-Powell, a peak in the San Gabriel Mountains.

Or else her last name is taken from a flaming drink they serve in Singapore but I don’t remember much else beyond saying, ‘Sure, I’ll try one.’

One and a half stars. Toccata in D Minor. Would a few bars have hurt?