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Ashley Greene, Sebastian Stan, Tom Felton, Julianna Guill, Luke Pasqualino ... see more see more... , Rick Gomez , Anna Clark , Tim Williams , Marty Martulis

When frightening events start to occur in their home, young couple Kelly (Ashley Greene) and Ben (Sebastian Stan) discover they are being haunted by a presence that was accidentally conjured during a ... read more read more...university parapsychology experiment. The horrifying apparition feeds on their fear and torments them no matter where they try to run. Their last hope is an expert in the supernatural, Patrick (Tom Felton), but even with his help they may already be too late to save themselves from this terrifying force. -- (C) Warner Bros.

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26% liked it

20,871 ratings

Critics

4% liked it

53 critics

PG-13, 1 hr. 23 min.

Directed by: Todd Lincoln

Release Date: August 24, 2012

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DVD Release Date: November 27, 2012

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Stats: 1,010 reviews

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Flixster Reviews (1,010)

  • emilkakko
    April 8, 2013
    emilkakko
    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 Appar... read moreition.

    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.
  • fb100000145236770
    December 14, 2012
    fb100000145236770
    "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 inve... read morentive 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.
  • fb100001050230219
    December 4, 2012
    fb100001050230219
    Embarassing.
  • YodaMasterJedi
    November 30, 2012
    YodaMasterJedi
    two and a half
  • fb100000716838411
    August 26, 2012
    fb100000716838411
    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 hau... read morented 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.
  • fb100000883534329
    August 24, 2012
    fb100000883534329
    Every minute I kept saying... seems legit.
  • moviewaffle
    November 27, 2012
    moviewaffle
    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. Li... read moreke '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.
  • fb100002023516744
    October 23, 2012
    fb100002023516744
    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...
  • xas5
    August 23, 2012
    xas5
    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 h... read moreouse 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".
  • cenzano38
    August 24, 2012
    cenzano38
    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 brigh... read moret, 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.

View All The Apparition Reviews

Critic Reviews

Ben Sachs
August 31, 2012
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. Full Review

Mark Feeney
August 29, 2012
Mark Feeney, Boston Globe

The entity is a ghostly presence amid an even ghostlier absence. This is truly distressed real estate. Full Review

Mark Olsen
August 28, 2012
Mark Olsen, Los Angeles Times

Something lacking either body heat or visceral suspense. Full Review

Frank Lovece
August 26, 2012
Frank Lovece, Newsday

For casual viewers desiring a few scares, some suspense and a sustained sense of dread and malevolence, you could do worse. Full Review

Andy Webster
August 26, 2012
Andy Webster, New York Times

Lights flicker; soap and cactuses blacken; claw marks appear; icky molds gather like hornet nests. Full Review

Keith Staskiewicz
August 26, 2012
Keith Staskiewicz, Entertainment Weekly

Might give you a restless night, but only because you fell asleep in the theater. Full Review

Nick Pinkerton
August 26, 2012
Nick Pinkerton, Village Voice

The Apparition is not a great or even good haunted-house movie, but it does have the advantage of a memorable setting. Full Review

Ben Kenigsberg
August 24, 2012
Ben Kenigsberg, Time Out New York

The movie loses goodwill early on by killing an adorable dog, resulting in a lack of an identification point, since the canine has better intuition than the humans. Full Review

John DeFore
August 24, 2012
John DeFore, Hollywood Reporter

Mild scares and a go-nowhere climax haunt this suburbs-set debut. Full Review

Joe Leydon
August 24, 2012
Joe Leydon, Variety

If you listen closely enough while things go bump in the night during The Apparition, you might also hear the scraping of barrel bottoms. Full Review

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Facts

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    • Patrick: If we can pull this off, we'll prove that anything supernatural when people believe in them.
    • Maggie: Your house killed my dog.
    • Patrick: Just wait until my father hears about this Potter!
    • Patrick: It knows you're afraid.
    • Kelly: Well, what does it want from us?
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The Apparition Trivia

  • In which movie was Johnny Depp sent to investigate the decapitations of 3 people with the culprit being a legendary apparition?  Answer »
  • On Halloween, 1962, young Frankie witnesses an eerie apparition. A she-ghost, in the grip of a weird and mysterious killer, begs Frankie to put her spirit to rest. To which film made in 1988 by Frank Laloggia does this synopsis belong?  Answer »
  • The Shining The apparition of the previous caretaker that appears is Delbert  Answer »
  • During the making of 'Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl' (2003) the shooting of the movie was delayed a couple of days because Keira Knightley had a Marian apparition.   Answer »
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