If you’re used to thinking of Charles Dickens’ «A Christmas Carol» as a cozy story with a fireplace, snow, presents and an inevitable happy ending, the new «Scrooge» is about to completely change the mood. Paramount has released the full trailer for the film, in which the familiar Christmas classic is transformed into a dark and mystical story.
And the film’s biggest trump card is Johnny Depp. Or rather, a man who is almost impossible to recognize beneath all that makeup.
Forget the Scrooge you know
In this new version of Dickens’ story, Ebenezer Scrooge looks as though he has spent several nights not in an accounting office, but in the worst nightmare imaginable. Depp has been completely hidden beneath elaborate makeup that transforms his appearance, facial expressions and overall silhouette.
But it’s not just about the looks. The filmmakers are clearly aiming for a Scrooge who is more than simply a greedy old man who suddenly becomes kinder under the influence of a Christmas miracle. Here, we get a much darker character — unpleasant, strange and occasionally frightening, yet also infused with Depp’s trademark dark humor and charisma.
It’s precisely this combination that could make the film particularly intriguing.
When Dickens meets horror
Director Ti West, known for the horror films «Pearl» and «MaXXXine», approached the material not as a traditional Christmas tale.
According to the director, he reread Dickens’ story every year as a child, but primarily saw it as a ghost story. Now he has decided to bring precisely that side of the original to the forefront.
As a result, the familiar story takes on a completely different atmosphere: less holiday warmth, more dark streets, unsettling visions and the feeling that Scrooge’s past, present and future have truly come to collect their debt.
Why Johnny Depp?
Depp seems almost perfectly suited to the role. The actor has a rare ability to turn strange and repulsive characters into figures you still can’t help but watch.
Ti West specifically praised his way of speaking and his ability to bring out Scrooge’s unpleasant traits without taking away the character’s humor and charisma.
And that is an important detail. In this version, Scrooge shouldn’t be simply evil. He becomes much more interesting when the viewer simultaneously wants to keep their distance from him and keep watching to see what he will do next.
Depp knows exactly how to create characters like that.
A story everyone knows, but one that now looks completely different
The story still revolves around Ebenezer Scrooge — a wealthy and completely hardened man for whom money matters more than people. On Christmas Eve, he comes face to face with the ghosts of the past, present and future.
This journey forces him to confront the consequences of his own selfishness and finally understand where his life has led him.
But in this new adaptation, the familiar moral tale takes on the feel of a genuine gothic story. Here, Christmas becomes less a celebration and more a night when a person is forced to confront the things they have spent years trying to turn away from.
And there is something much more adult about that than in an ordinary story about a Christmas miracle.
Judging by the trailer, the result will be a dark, occasionally unsettling and yet ironic film in which Christmas ghosts look less like charming symbols of the holiday and more like creatures you really wouldn’t want to encounter alone at night in an empty house.
And Johnny Depp as Scrooge looks so unusual that this alone is enough to make the film worth watching.
The film is scheduled for an international release on November 13.
It looks like this year’s Christmas spirit won’t begin with bells and presents. Perhaps we’ll have to face an encounter with the ghosts first.
