Preston Castle

Martin Rosenberg and co-writer Peter Bailey give a great ghost story using a very creepy, and spooky urban legend, and real life scene of tragedy as the location for "A Haunting At Preston Castle". The story arc, back story, and characters are well developed, even though they are your standard tropes. This is an indie horror so the film quality, although above most low budget horror, is stripped down. It is also a well produced horror with most of the scenes playing out in convincing manner, with creepy, shadowy backgrounds, typical spooky sounds and expected cheap, shock-thrill effects for sudden scares. The cast give authentic, fully committed performances of the three teens fated to fall victim to one evil, vengeful spirit. Of course the real star of "A Haunting At Preston Castle" is the real life tragedy of this haunted location-Preston Castle.

The effects are standard, low-key visual effects and spook gimmicks like falling objects, creepy sounds and characters that seem to freak out uncontrollably over everything! The CGI ghost effects are disappointing, and the entity doesn't spend nearly enough time on screen. The death scenes are pretty much off camera and only revealed during, high emotion, theatrical moments that give the last character standing some real horror to freak out over. Most things are cookie cutter moments that only give small amounts of chills and thrills. The film does have a nice pace that builds some suspense but the pay off isn't quite intense enough to give any real fright- filled moments.

Overall "A Haunting At Preston Castle" only offers a slightly above par horror movie experience. Everything is all been seen and done many- many times before, and we don't get the pleasure of seeing the kills take place. Bummer! Still it is a cool story, on level with past paranormal horrors such as "Boo" and "Death Tunnel". Plus the whole story around Preston Castle and the urban legends that formed after the tragic events is a great vehicle for this traditional 'ghost adventure gone wrong' tale. Even though the ghost is a weak and under-used part of this ghost story and you can guess just how the film will end long before the last act, "A Haunting At Preston Castle" is a nice spooky time killer.

A Haunting at Preston Castle (2012)

Poor old Liz (Mackenzie Firgens) has been dumped. It's getting towards the end of her college break and she is sat sulking turning down an offer to go out with her mother, because she is feeling THAT miserable. Her best friend Ashley (Heather Tocquigny) thinks she knows just the thing to cheer her buddy up. Ashley arranges a hook-up with Liz's high school ex-boyfriend Danny (Jake White) and the threesome head off to spooky Preston Castle with a view to rekindling Liz and Danny's romance.

Danny appears to know a lot about Preston Castle's hideous history recounting grisly tales to the girls. Preston Castle is an abandoned boy's correctional institute hardly the place I'd pick to reignite an old romance. Ashley leaves the two prospective love-birds alone as she listens to their shenanigans from the above room. However it is not long before Ashley goes missing with the other two having no idea where to find here. Doors close of their own account, shadows appear out of nowhere and being bitten by things unseen, all of which is right up my street!

I'm a sucker for a good ghostly yarn, in fact I'm a sucker for a poor one too, and such is my love for the haunted house sub-genre, so please bare that in mind when reading my critique of A Haunting at Preston Castle. The film is inspired by true events that happened at the Californian location and the location has featured on TV's Ghost Hunters and Ghost Adventures. Please don't think that there really was a Liz, Ashley and Danny that visited Preston Castle recently, you're taking the 'inspired/based on' angle too literally if you do, but I just know some of you will.

There are gripes - why do Liz's friends seem surprised by her insistence on filming everything? It's how it is now, everyone films or photos everything. It's the culture so this questioning by Liz's friends felt a little irrelevant. Also in spite of the evidence right there in front of her Liz continues to believe there are no such things as ghosts. It becomes rather infuriating. Far too much time is spent having Liz and Danny searching for the missing Ashley. This section could have been tighter.

It's not all bad. There are pluses and healthy ones too. The characters are well defined, if a little irritating they feel more feel than the usual ciphers present in genre output. Co-writer/director Martin Rosenberg's film offers nothing wholly new overall but does twist a little from the norm - former lovers fall out again rather than reconcile in the face of adversity, they have a working phone so none of that 'oh no, we've got no signal' - and it's these little touches that lift it above average.

If you prefer body count over mood and atmosphere you'll be left wanting. I found A Haunting at Preston Castle refreshing that it didn't adhere to that and relied on mood instead. I loathe flicks that feel the need to have something startling happen every ten minutes or so just for the sake of it. That's not good horror that's scary bits in search of a narrative. Here we have a narrative and it's pretty good too and although it runs out of steam towards the end for my money it makes for a reasonable night's entertainment.

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Actually, why did we come here in the first place? Oh yeah, for no real reason at all. Apart from the fact that we wanted to film everything and leave the footage for someone to edit ... wait! Ah yes the downfalls of those "Found Footage" movies. And when I say those, I speak of specific ones, not all of them.

But this is a prime example, why the let's call it sub-genre got a bad rep. There are scares thrown in here from time to time and for a low budget movie, they are not that bad. But the question is, if you really care? I don't think you will. And the characters are not even that annoying (all of the time that is) .. let's best forget about it/them ... something already been done by others!

Unfortunately, this effort at horror has to be one of the most inconsistent horror movies I've seen in the past couple of years.

The lead actress's character is the worst of all the inconsistencies. One moment she wants to get out of the place without her friend, then when the "boyfriend" decides they should get out, she wants to find her friend and nothing will stop her from searching for her.

Things just go down hill after that as it becomes a parade of clichés and horror movie tropes handled poorly

Frankly, I've seen this movie before and it has been done better.

Spend your time watching something.

Preston Castle/The Haunting of Preston Castle is the 8th movie in the Paranormal Investigations franchise and so far the one with the highest budget at 3.4 million! Really quite astonishing from a franchise made up of hyper low budget usually found footage movies.

Now the 7th movie turned a weird corner as it starred and was directed by Hollywood star Michael Rooker. Yet even that only had a million at it's disposal so what did they do here with over three times that?

Well, I don't know where the money went...........at all. It's a tiny and entirely unknown cast, the quality is really quite poor and it's one of those haunting films where nothing actually happens so little to no money was needed for sfx.

It tells the story of three friends who go exploring in an abandoned asylum. You know, that plot that literally hundreds of these things have used. Anyway in the 78 minute running time nothing happens other than it's successful attempt at boring the viewer.

So again where in the blue hell did the money go?! Best catering ever?

Awful stuff that will appeal only to the most diehard of sub-genre fans.

The Good:

Nope

The Bad:

Poor camerawork

Badly edited

Nothing happens