The Apparition is a 2012 horror film written and directed by Todd Lincoln, and starring Ashley Greene, Sebastian Stan, Luke Pasqualino, and Tom Felton.
The film opens with a group of college students attempting to resume a parapsychology experiment from the 1970s, in which a deceased researcher was successfully contacted. After the experiment meets with seemingly disastrous results, the focus abruptly shifts to a young couple who soon begin to suspect that something is very wrong within their brand new home.
This film includes examples of the following tropes:
- Apocalyptic Log: Patrick obsessively makes audio and video recordings of his struggles against the Apparition.
- Alien Geometries: The Apparition pulls this on Kelly, trapping her inside the room she has just nailed shut. However, it is also stated that the Apparition can confuse its victims about what is real.
- The Call Knows Where You Live: Moving to the desert and getting a new job and girlfriend does not keep the Apparition's attention away from Ben.
- Clap Your Hands If You Believe: Patrick has built a machine that amplifies peoples' belief in spirits to test the theory that belief is what allows them to enter our world.
- Creepy Child: "YOUR HOUSE KILLED MY DOG!"
- Creepy Doll: The effigy of Dr. Reamer, particularly after it gets shattered and fused back together.
- Dark World: The destination of the Apparition's victims is apparently a washed-out, empty version of our own reality.
- Downer Ending: The film ends with Kelly trapped in the Dark World; friendless, but with the Apparition right behind her.
- Eldritch Abomination: According to Patrick, this is what The Apparition actually is. And considering its power on the environment and the ways it likes to manifest itself, he may be most definitely right.
- Final Girl: Kelly
- Goth: Ben has a Bauhaus T-shirt.
- Hope Spot: When Ben and Kelly reach Patrick's safe house. Except the power starts to flicker, almost as soon as they're inside it, enabling the Apparition to enter as well.
- Humanoid Abomination: The Apparition at one point manifests as a Stringy-Haired Ghost Girl a couple of times to freak out the protagonists even further.
- Mad Scientist: Patrick.
- Never Trust a Trailer: The movie's trailer has more of a plot than the finished film does - implying the evil whatsit will only attack people once they start believing in it, an interesting concept not present in the movie.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Each of Patrick's attempts to dispell the Apparition come down to trying the same thing only with more power. Each time the Apparition just comes back stronger and more aggressive.
- Nothing Is Scarier: The Apparition is actually kind of a misleading title.
- Product Placement: Early in the film, the characters go to a Costco-like shopping center, and later Kelly returns to it to try and hide.
- Stringy-Haired Ghost Girl: What the Apparition manifests as to scare the protagonists.
- Trailers Always Spoil: Both the trailer and the movie poster depict the very last shot of the film.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: The neighbor and his daughter, who simply stop appearing halfway through the film.
- What the Hell, Hero?: Kelly's reaction when she finds out about Ben's past.
- Wrong Genre Savvy: Patrick's scientific theories would probably work brilliantly if he were in the Ghost Story he thinks he is. Unfortunately for everyone involved, he doesn't realize until far too late that it is actually a Cosmic Horror Story.
