So I’ll be the first to admit that the trailers for Robert Zemeckis’ take on Charles Dickens’ classic A Christmas Carol looked like total shit. It made the film look like a slapstick “hilarious” adventure full of uncanny valley CGI characters that Zemeckis’ still doesn’t realize are creepy as fuck.

It was 20 minutes into the film when the ghost of Jacob Marley’s jaw unhinges and he moans through his unnaturally gaping maw while his tongue flops out like a victim from The Grudge that I realized Zemeckis knows exactly how creepy this shit is, and he wants to scare the Christmas spirit into your kid.

For the most part this version of a Christmas Carol follows the book very closely. Much of the dialogue is lifted directly from the novel, and Zemeckis adds a lot of visually stunning, and sometimes terrifying imagery. The Ghosts become the real stars of the film, and while that kind of detracts from the point of Dickens’ fable, it wasn’t a diversion I minded. Honestly, there have been a million damn adaptations of this tired old book, and most of them miss the point anyway. I’d rather the criticisms of the Church, and the allusions to prisons, whorehouses, and insane asylums get the spotlight than the simpering tale of Tiny Tim.

There are a few rollercoaster spectacle shots, mostly to take advantage of the 3D, and yes, a lot of them are stupid (especially the one with the Ghost of Christmas Future). But hey, I paid extra to see it in 3D, and a few too many flying through the city scenes are better than Beowulf’s near constant hurling of objects at the camera. Some of the character still come off as lifeless, and even with the stylization the kids look like Margaret Keane paintings come to life, but for the most part it doesn’t feel like they cast zombies.

This is the scariest version of A Christmas Carol I’ve ever seen, and Lovejoy of Christmas Past would have flipped his shit if he saw this. What it lacks in soul it makes up for in spectacle, which is good because there’s a ton of spectacle, and almost no soul. It’s not the best version, not even close, but it’s at least a different one, and it was entertaining.