The Abandoned

Make no mistake that unlike the previous film The Abandoned is polished, features stunning cinematography and a haunting score. What it doesn't have is any real entertainment value or true sense of logic. The film works best as horrifically beautiful sequences and hauntingly grotesque images. Some of which will be permanantly burned into your psyche. But Nacho Cerdas story of a young woman that returns to her native country to learn about her adopted parents and discovers horrifying truths just really isn't that involving. The film however does feature plenty of symbolism and subtext but feels like it goes on forever and doesn't feel as scary as it should've been. However, this is a respectable horror film the performances are soso and the pacing is off but the film looks gorgeous and works best as a piece of art. Certain scenes should be studied but as a whole just isn't completely successful. But the scenes that are effective and cringe worthy are disturbingly atmospheric and memorable, they just seem to drop the ball halfway through and keep teasing at some sort of payoff that never comes. Nonetheless the film makes for an interesting viewing.

The Abandoned was billed as the fan favorite of the Horrorfest (i.e., 8 Films to Die For) that occurred in late 2006. Most of the rating lists that I have seen from posters on IMDb have ranked The Abandoned very high, while ranking the Japanese film Reincarnation in the middle of the pack. I personally thought that Reincarnation was very good, so I figured that the re-release of The Abandoned would give me the opportunity to experience what everyone has been talking about. After the show one thing is for certain: The Abandoned could not have been the best film at the Horrorfest, because Reincarnation runs circles around this film in terms of storyline and entertainment value.

This film had everything it needed as far as atmosphere is concerned. The woodland areas, the river, and the house were perfect to build atmosphere and a sense of dread. Unfortunately, the filmmakers were too impatient to allow the fantastic environment to mature and reach the viewer in full effect. A character would be walking in the dimly lit forest, and just when I began to take in the atmosphere, the filmmakers would intrude with an excessively loud scream or noise for no apparent reason. There were so many "false scares" in this film that they effectively mitigated any atmospheric effect whatsoever. In other words, the filmmakers "prematurely ejaculated" with stupid sound effects before the viewer was able to reach "atmospheric orgasm."

Ironically, there were probably a dozen or so "jump-out-of-your-seat" scares during the first portion of the film, and most of them were in situations with no real danger. For example, the opening scene shows a few babies crying in a truck, which transitions to an airplane arriving at an airport. Regrettably, the director couldn't stand by and allow such a transition to pass without cranking up the damn sound to the point where my eardrums were ready to explode. The filmmakers are apparently stupid enough to think that scene transitions with sonic booms clocking in at over 200 decibels are somehow entertaining.

Perhaps the most common method of premature sound ejaculation in The Abandoned is the use of voices coming from nowhere. These voices begin at a whisper and crescendo to a loud scream in between scenes. Instead of just allowing the scene transition to occur, the filmmakers would use these idiotic gimmicks to make the viewer jump in their seat before continuing on to the next chapter. Imagine someone sneaking up behind you in a store, only to then scream in your ear and startle you. Any no-talent hack can do that. It's not scary. They're just being a jerk. That's what The Abandoned is – a jerk who annoys you at their every opportunity.

It's really too bad, because the concept that presents itself at the very end of the film is quite good. It's a blending of doppelgangers and premonitions that works well for the few seconds that it presents itself, but everything leading up to that point is nothing more than 90 minutes of sonic booms and premature ejaculations.

Not recommended.

Now I am not that old, early 30's but I have to say what is the movie crowd watching, I am afraid this film may fall in between the older group, older than me and the young crowd. It isn't Jack Ass and it is not Hills Have Eyes, The Abandoned is a well written and in my opinion an over all good suspense film that is getting over looked by the movie goer. I have seen the banners on the internet and some trailers but they don't even do this film justice. What I like is that it takes us on a journey to a part of the world where you know there was and is a lot of adoption abuse and other acts against humans going on and it tells a story of a home, a haunted past that won't rest until the family is all but gone. The spirits may be stuck in another place, who knows, the point is that the movie has a story, it has a life and I applaud the movie fan who like me can appreciate this, God I sound like my Mom, I give the movie a B and I encourage people not to over look this just because it doesn't have a flashy cast. Have fun, this movie will make you jump a few times and takes you on a few rides. I look forward to more films from Nacho Cerda, I will keep my ears open for his name in the future.

In 1966, somewhere in Russia, a wounded woman drives a truck to an isolated farm with two babies. Forty years later, the film producer Marie Jones (Anastasia Hille) leaves her daughter in California and travels back to her home land in the wilderness of Russia. Marie is one of the children and had received a phone call from the notary public Andrei Misharin (Valentin Ganev) that had told her where the farm of her family is. Marie arrives in the abandoned house and meets the stranger Nicolai (Karel Roden) that tells her that he had also received a call from Misharin and he is her twin brother. Weird things happen in the house and Marie and Nicolai are haunted by eerie ghosts of themselves. Further, they find that they are trapped in the house and can not leave the place.

"The Abandoned" is a frightening and creepy film of ghosts, with a nightmarish atmosphere but a dull story. The unknown Anastasia Hille has great performance and the cinematography is very dark; but the story is very confused and predictable. Cristopher Smith used in "Triangle" (2009) a similar idea of people trapped in a location that can never leave the cycle. My vote is five.

Title (Brazil): "Abandonados" ("Abandoned")

Note: On 04 January 2021. I saw this film again.

Taking us back and forth 40 years in Russia and it is obvious not a lot has changed from 1966 up until today, I found this to be an exceptional use of location to create a dark eerie presence and visual display on screen. Director Nacho Cerda got the most out of the 2 lead roles (Anastasia Hille and Karel Roden), I had never seen either one of them and I think they did a reasonably good job working out the kinks of the film. The story is the only thing that really bothered me, I tried to stay with it but honestly there were some times that I did get a little lost but every time I found myself wondering what was going on, the characters answered my questions. I was wondering how Nicolai got to the house and Marie asked him that very question. I thought the movie was well thought out and sound affects and visuals really helped draw you in to the film. A lot of moments that made my wife jump and grab my arm tighter.