Ebenezer
Director – Ti West – 2026 – US – Cert. 12a – 116m
***** the horror-y bits
**** the rest
Greedy and ruthless financial man Ebenezer Scrooge is shown the error of his ways by three ghosts over the course of one Christmas Eve night – out in UK cinemas on Friday, November 13th
With a text as well known and filmed as many times as Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, it’s probably pointless to rehash the plot, but, in brief, in its present version with current cast members inserted: Ebenezer Scrooge (Johnny Depp) of the financial firm Scrooge & Marley is obsessed with financial propriety to the exclusion of all else – employees, family, and Christmas itself. He loses his longstanding business partner Jacob Marley (a convincing Ian Mckellan) when the latter unexpectedly drops dead one Christmas eve. Even so, Scrooge expects his honest, loyal, hardworking and thorough clerk Bob Cratchit (Rupert Grint) to work as normal on Christmas Day. Cratchit’s son Tiny Tim (Freddie Lee-Gray) is a cheerful soul despite having one leg in a brace and a short life expectancy. Nor will he visit his nephew Fred (Sam Claflin) for Christmas dinner, despite an invitation to do so every year.
Seven years later, on Christmas Eve, Scrooge is visited first by the departed Marley, dragging heavy and inconvenient boxes of wealth behind him on chains, then by three ghosts – of Christmas Past, Present and Future (Andrea Risborough, Tramell Tillman, Robert Strange) – who show him the errors of his ways. Given the opportunity for repentance, he becomes a changed man who starts making up for lost time embracing employee, family, and the Christmas festivities.
Seasoned horror director Ti West (Pearl, 2022; The Sacrament, 2013; The Innkeepers, 2011) perfectly deploys the iconography of the horror movie in a context other than horror, and his use of such elements is highly effective. Ravens put in appearances at various points, linking the idea of the Devil with Scrooge’s uncharitable and selfish overall demeanour. Alongside this, West also perfectly captures scenes of traditional Christmas worship in an English Church, where the uncharitable Scrooge is made to feel most uncomfortable.
Indeed, with its critique of usury and its emphasis on both family and charity to one’s fellow man, Dickens’ source text could be reasonable said to be deeply Christian in its values. Those values certainly come through loud and clear in Ti West’s new version.
It’s a perfectly decent and acceptable adaptation, with certain elements rising to greatness. Chief among these are the first two ghosts, both of whom get as goodly an amount of screen time as you might expect. The third ghost, or spirit as they are referred to here, a tall, shady, black-faced figure, is mostly an anticlimax, although he gets a nice moment before he disappears when he pulls back his hood to reveal that he, too, has Scrooge’s face, and a raven exits his mouth.
We’ll work our way backwards through the other two spirits. Christmas Present likewise has a great exit, when he opens his huge coat to reveal, inside his exposed ribcage, the twin zombie children of Ignorance (a boy) and Want (a girl). We first meet him sitting in a pub where his table is laden with an appetising if messy pile of food, on which he is joyously feasting. As he takes Scrooge on his journey through Christmas Present, the skin on his face starts to crack, until by the end, it resembles the disintegrating bark of an old tree trunk.
The first spirit, Christmas Past (Andrea Risborough), also borrows from zombie iconography in that she has eyeballs raised so that only white is visible, and she is clad in flowing white dress and veil in the manner of a corpse bride. The actress makes her into something truly fearsome and terrifying. One of the things she shows Scrooge is his relationship with Belle (Ellie Bamber) which fell apart as his interest in money began to consume him.
Depp is watchable enough, but it feels like he’s yet again playing himself, making one long for his roles in Minamata, (Andrew Levitas, 2020), Ed Wood (Tim Burton, 1994) or Edward Scissorhands (Tim Burton, 1990) (to name but three). The same perfectly serviceable but nothing special feel extends to much of the rest of the film. However, wherever the horror iconography works its way into the visuals or narrative, the result is stunning.
Ebenezer is out in cinemas in the UK on Friday, November 13th.
Trailer: