The Apparition is worst written and directed movie of 2012

Warner Bros. downsized the release of The Apparition, opening the supernatural movie at only 810 locations. The distribution move marked the demise of the Ashley Greene's attempt to seek stardom outside of The Twilight Saga movies. We discussed The Apparition movie on several of our movie websites. After reviewing The Apparition several times, we now believe the poorly executed film is the worst of 2012.

Filmmaker Todd Lincoln took a potentially great premise and executed the movie. When we suggest executed, we mean he killed the premise. However, good news is that Lincoln's writing/directing career is moving forward. On a negative note, the production studio who invested $17 million to make this awful movie must hope to earn back their investment in the overseas movie market. 

The Apparition is thus a box office flop. It could've finished second place in the opening weekend, but releasing the movie at only 810 locations showed the movie distributor lacked confidence in the product and or there is more to the decision than meets the critical eye. According to Movies.com, The Apparition never screened for movie critics. If you want further explanation on The Apparition downfall, read Movies.com's article here. 

Whereas The Possession is a good exorcism movie, we don't think it is the best ever. It takes good movie marketing to capture attention. The Devil Inside went to social media to prevent younger moviegoers from attending the exorcism movie. However, the same word-of-mouth that helped to The Devil Inside finish with a record-breaking $34.5 million opening weekend in early January 2012 actually hurt the remainder of its box office run. 

The exorcism horror movie only made another $18-19 million after the wide release (hint: it has a bad movie ending, poor execution, and never names the demons). The Possession, The Rite, The Last Exorcism, The Exorcism of Emily Rose, Exorcist: The Beginning, and The Exorcist name the demon. An exorcism prayer is ineffective without naming the demon the exorcist plans to exorcise outside of the possessed victim. 

Todd Lincoln would probably make an exorcism movie into another empty product. What have we learned after watching The Apparition? Nothing. It takes more than exposition to explain parapsychology. Patrick lacks expertise in parapsychology to properly explain the danger in releasing an entity. There is one scene in the movie trailer that manipulates the viewer into thinking the entity jumps from person-to-person.     

Without Ashley Greene, the Apparition is essentially an invisible entity. There are too many story structure problems. The most obvious screenwriting mistake is that Lincoln overuses exposition to explain a good concept such as parapsychology. What is parapsychology? Parapsychology falls under the division of psychology, conveying the unexplained disciplines involving areas such as supernatural, paranormal, metaphysics, near-death experiences, astral projection, out-of-body experiences, lucid dreaming, and the subplanes of the astral plane.   

Astral projection enabled Insidious to become the sleeper hit of 2011. Leigh Whannel and James Wan understand good filmmaking. The ultra screenwriter and talented director both attended The Royal Institute of Technology in Australia. As you can see, these two friends know how to write and direct movies. Their Saw, Dead Silence, and Insidious movies boosted the duo, Leigh Whannell and James Wan, to a net worth $55 million and $50 million respectively. 

The Hollywood stars will keep producing big films. They took a $1.5 million production and transformed it into a major success at $54 million (domestic box office take). As a result, Insidious collected $97 million in the worldwide box office. Good filmmakers take a small production and execute it right. Saw II cost $4 million to produce, which opened up with $31.7 million in the weekend box office and went on to earn $147.7 million worldwide. Saw cost $1.2 million to make, also earning $102.9 million worldwide and reaching identical domestic box office totals than its horror successor - Insidious. 

Do you see the trend here? Leigh Whannell and James Wong don't require $17 million to make a box office hit. However, Leigh and James did fail to materialize on their Dead Silence movie ($20 million dollar production budget). Dead Silence opened up at the box office with $7.8 million and eventually flamed out, albeit the movie nearly reached the production cost and made back a surplus of $2 million in the international box office. 

Leigh and James rebounded with the Insidious movie. It projected astral projection on the map, a premise that has been utilized several times in past movies (i.e. Psychic Killer, A Nightmare on Elm Street movies, Shocker, and 2011 astral projection movies Sucker Punch and Source Code). Wes Carven's Shocker actually made a small fortune on a $5 million production budget, finishing with $16.6 million in the domestic box office. Horror movies paired with interesting sub-genres build box office momentum. 

Astral projection has been around since the beginning of time. We see astral projection captured on Egyptian paintings. Leigh and James made movie history with having Elise utter out "astral projection" to moviegoers. Moviegoers begin to research astral projection in movies. Astral projection was the talk of the web in 2011. All it takes is for one movie to mention an interesting topic. What happened to Todd Lincoln's parapsychology? In my opinion, I think Lincoln could have made a better movie concentrating on defeating the entity through confiding with a parapsychology researcher.      

I must be doing something wrong to not reach James and Leigh's success. My movie dreams have been intact since 1994. I attended two film schools, wrote screenplays often, and possessed a bundle of movie ideas. However, my recent move from Santa Clarita (The Apparition movie location) to the East Coast resulted in losing all previous writing samples, except the content featured on my movie websites. 

In the Houston theft at an Italian restaurant, several great movie screenplays, hundreds of movie taglines, script notes, movie titles, character profiles, and many of my best writing samples are forever gone. Good writers know how to recreate lost work. The worst part of the robbery is that my Apple laptop, Final Draft screenwriting software, screenwriting books, and screenwriting supplies were also stolen. You begin to feel like recurring struggles are like the movies. Writing good movies involve understand real conflict, and then resolving the main problems (resolution and falling action).       

It makes me think how a production company gave Todd Lincoln $17 million to make The Apparition. For some odd reason, the writer/director butchered a potentially great movie premise. The Apparition overused Costco, Santa Clarita, Valencia, and Palmdale shooting locations. Ashley Greene and Sebastian Stan are good actors, so there is no reason The Apparition should have fallen flat. The movie distributor must have realized the movie lacked execution. Who really knows the backstory to reducing the paranormal movie to 810 locations? BoxOffice.com projected the movie to make $14 million on the first weekend and $33 million overall. According to IMdb.com, The Apparition earned a mere $4.7 million in the domestic box office. 

A good writer knows how to create suspense in one location to focus on the main concept. The high concept of exorcism movies explain the motivation behind releasing possession themes. I run ExorcismMovies.com, a movie website that has performed rather well since The Devil Inside scored a $34.5 million opening weekend. Prior to the movie release, Exorcism Movies was just another movie website trying to capture a fan base. My most popular movie website is FilmEnding.com, another website that took off a week before the release of The Dark Knight Rises. 

As for my future writing career, I would rather be living back in Los Angeles, attempting to capture a Hollywood dream that I feel has eluded me because I lack industry connections, opportunity and resources.  

Anyhow, I believe we are meant to experience past events to shape our future. Our past and current struggles hold greater meaning than goes above us. You may question how a writer/director with no past hits can convince a production studio to fund a movie that lacks execution. It is all about pitching the script idea to the right people. Movie marketing drives the film industry. 

I understand movie marketing to get results. I know how to write movie taglines. I realize there is demand for twist endings, film ending, plot spoiler, possession movies, genre movies, and the genres. I run all the movie websites on dot com domains. Good movie marketing begins with acquiring the best possible domain name. Next, a movie distributor must release a movie trailer ahead of a movie release. This movie trailer must be good enough to convince moviegoers the movie is worth watching. I won't give away too much of the movie marketing plan, but you get the gist of the process. 

The Apparition movie failed because the movie is unoriginal. It never delves into parapsychology. We hear Elise in the Insidious movie explain astral projection. Parapsychology is an interesting premise that has major potential. It should be revisited again to make a future movie. When you watch The Apparition in movie theaters, you will feel as if you are sitting at home viewing a SyFy movie. 

In essence, I would accept screenwriting credit for The Apparition. No matter good or bad, any screen credit can get a screenwriter noticed. I keep reflecting back to not having my screenwriting business card on hand while chatting with Cindy Williams and another writer named Marla. My advice to you is to be prepared. Never let your guard down. 

The Apparition will probably win a Razzie Award for worst horror movie of 2012. Screenwriters can use The Apparition as an example of what not to do. Imitating past movie scenes instead of creating original material compromised The Apparition. We never predicted the movie would fail until actual box office projections hinted to an unimpressive $3 million dollar opening weekend at 810 locations. 

We all know the opening weekend accounts for a majority of the box office ticket sales, except movies with strong stamina such as James Cameron, Christopher Nolan, and other popular screenwriters/directors with star power. The Apparition is a learning lesson to new directors and writers. Even current Hollywood talents can learn a thing or two about how to market a movie and what moviegoers want. 

Good luck on your dreams and goals!