The Apparition is a 2012 American-German supernatural horror film, written and directed by Todd Lincoln, making his directorial debut, and starring Ashley Greene, Sebastian Stan, Tom Felton, Julianna Guill and Rick Gomez. The plot follows three college students who, after the death of their friend, must battle a supernatural force they summoned themselves. The film was loosely inspired by the Philip experiment conducted in 1972.
The film was universally panned by critics, with chief complaints being the complete lack of scares, poor script, borrowing from other better horror films, and for spoiling the ending in the theatrical trailer. The film was also a box office bomb, and was cited by critics as one of the worst films of 2012.
Plot[]
On May 21, 1973, six people conduct The Charles Experiment, a parapsychological experiment, in which they stare at a drawing of a deceased man, Charles Reamer, hoping to summon his spirit. Years later, four college students, Patrick (Tom Felton), Lydia (Julianna Guill), Ben (Sebastian Stan) and Greg (Luke Pasqualino) attempt to recreate the Charles Experiment on a larger scale by using modern technology. During the experiment, something attacks the students and pulls Lydia into the wall.
Some time later, Ben and his girlfriend Kelly (Ashley Greene) are living together. One evening, they discover strange burn marks on their counters. Kelly finds both doors wide open, even though they had locked them. They decide to change the locks and install surveillance cameras. Later, Kelly finds a large amount of mold and spores on the laundry room floor while Ben finds even more in a crawlspace. Ben gets 36 "urgent" emails from Patrick that first inform him of a new attempt at the Charles Experiment, followed by a warning that "containment failed" and finally "you are in danger".
After witnessing an apparition, the couple go to a hotel, but they are attacked there as well. As they flee, they receive a call from Patrick and meet him. Patrick explains that the initial experiment enabled a malevolent entity to enter their world, but that he has built a room surrounded by a negative current that he believes protects him from it. They return to Kelly and Ben's house to try a new experiment to contain the entity. During the experiment, the house begins to shake and break apart, then abruptly stops. While Kelly and Ben are outside, Patrick is pulled into the darkness and vanishes. Unable to find Patrick, they flee to the safety chamber in his house.
Inside the house, they hear Patrick's personal log being played back, including information about the members of the original experiment. Of the original six, two died, one committed suicide and the other three disappeared. After entering the safety chamber, Ben disappears. Kelly exits the chamber and finds Ben's contorted corpse. Patrick's narration explains that the entity gets stronger with each person it claims, and that it will wear its victims down until they are too weak to resist.
With no escape, Kelly wanders around, and enters an empty Costco. She walks to the camping section, enters a tent and waits to be killed by the entity, having fully given up resisting. A number of hands appear from behind and the entity slowly grabs hold of her as the movie cuts to black.