Apparition (2019)

Spooktober Challenge 2025

Premise: twenty years ago (well, twenty five adjusting for inflation and when the movie was released) this kid is unjustly sent to reformatory and it’s like all the possible bad things happen to him in like the first two minutes of the movie. I’m talking “some evil guard cuts one of his fingers to make an example of the kid”. The only ray of light seems to be Mena Suvari who is kind of the uh cook and cleaning lady and let’s be honest it’s not really well established other than “whoa things sure suck here and she’s good but everyone else is horrible”.
SUDDENLY, a timeskip and we’re in the present year, or uh a few years ago. The old warden and guards are now apparently super successful and they all have kids and the kids are like about to get married or going out with each other or whatever and also one of the kids is autistic (this is played up for laffs) AND he’s also a nerd who’s programmed an app that lets you find g-g-g-ghosts. This is all dropped on you in like a minute, that’s why there wasn’t any break on that sentence. And uhm, yeah, the go to the reformatory and things get spooky, boo, etc.
Under 90 minutes? yeah, around 83.
Do they say the title? Yeah. And guess what? It’s because the phone app is called (wait for it) APParition. Yes, that’s the level of writing on display.

One sentence review:

Okay, more: Oof, this was really bad. I’m usually ready to forgive a lot if at least I can tell there’s some earnest effort or like, a couple of nice ideas… yeaaaah this is not that. A really bad script that is not helped by the actors at any point - we’re kinda talking “disney channel made-for-tv movie” levels of performances on display. Meh.
A simple way to improve it: maybe a few changes would really improve the movie. For example, instead of setting it in a reformatory and dealing with that “this is what happened, this is what’s happening now” and the app, maybe we could set it at outpost 31, antarctica. A group of scientists and researchers unveil th- hey where are you going?

Trivia about the IMDb trivia:

Mena Suvari’s body and stunt double was also a paranormal investigator and arrived on set with a binder full of clippings and details about the castle and it’s haunted history. Within the castle, there is a basement pool once used to “disinfect” the juvenile inmates by dipping them in chemical-laden water. The pool was filled with water for the first time since the School was shut down; and, according to the stunt-double the remaining spirit inmates “were not happy.”

Mena Survari’s body double was well aware of the haunted history of The Preston Castle and the movie was filmed entirely on location. She had written a journal years ago about paranormal documentation of Anna and other ghosts inhabiting the castle and the two spent much of their downtime touring “spaces of paranormal interest” throughout the Castle.