Review: Johnny Depps mean-spirited Ebenezer makes a holiday classic unfun for the whole family

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Set us as preferred Why remake “A Christmas Carol” again? Ti West’s “Ebenezer” has a solid pitch.The horror director of “Pearl” and “MaXXXine” cranks up the shivers in Charles Dickens’ moralistic ghost story with jump scares, a zombie horde of ghouls and a cemetery outside the curmudgeon’s bedroom window.

It even invents a murder as a treat.And why has Johnny Depp, who has spent the last several years reeling from his reputation-dinging public divorce trials, chosen loathsome Ebenezer Scrooge as his comeback? Perhaps he likes aligning himself with fiction’s most famously redeemed scoundrel.When this chastened Scrooge yelps, “I’m not the man I was!” Depp gets so riled up that he jumps on his bed until it breaks.“Ebenezer” sounds like the title of a sympathetic prequel, the sob story of a nasty man’s first “Humbug!” It sort of is.

Mostly it’s the same tale, slightly expanded.“Ebenezer” marks Johnny Depp’s return to film after his messy legal battle with Amber Heard.The movie’s London premiere featured loads of fans and a faux Victorian street scene — in a city where ghosts of Dickens’ famous fable abound.Nathaniel Halpern’s script starts by flashing back to Scrooge’s business partner, Jacob Marley (Ian McKellen), while the cranky old creep is still alive, humanizing Scrooge by showing him palling around with a friend.

Marley proves to be even meaner, harassing their employee Bob Cratchit (a well-cast Rupert Grint), while Scrooge simply snickers.When Marley drops dead, then returns seven years later as a ghost, this Scrooge is so scared he wets his nightgown.

We’re gifted a close-up of the puddle.That’s the tone in a nutshell.Frankly, I wish it worked.

The best holiday heartwarmers have a morbid spritz to them, from “The Nightmare Before Christmas” to “Home A...