A Haunting in Salem

A haunting in Salem is anything but original. Full of your standard horror tropes and clichés you'll have seen every bit of it before but done a whole hell of a lot better.

Telling the story of a Sheriff and his family moving into a house with a dark past connected to witches (It is Salem after all) You'll see every scene coming a mile off and despite the budget very little of it even looks remotely good.

The Good:

Courtney Abbiati

The Bad:

Clichéd everything

Things I learnt from this movie:

A throw from a 3 story window will merely wind you

Many of the reviews I have seen of this film have been insulting to the looks of the main character: Bill Oberst, Jr. is playing a sheriff, not a beauty contestant; Besides, he plays the lead quite well, but he is not helped by a horrible, hackneyed screenplay that paints by numbers a haunted-house film that could easily have been a Lifetime made-for-TV movie. At least ten minutes of this folly comprised people walking up and down stairs. If we're going to judge a movie based on good looks, I give this one two (**) stars for Jenna Stone's feet.

Sheriff Wayne Downs(Bill Oberst Jr.) wears his pants pretty high,unfortunately though,not high enough to hide his dreadful acting.He has potential as a villain but his casting as a leading man in this story was idiotic especially as his wife(Courtney Abbiati)was unbelievably hot. Although she was some welcome eye candy,Abbiati was more wooden than the surrounding structure and provided some strange inappropriate smiles at the wrong times as though she was reading the words but failing to put them into the context of the film. To say the shocks were hackneyed would be putting it mildly,(how many times can an image in a mirror reflection be used?)the directing was unimaginative and seemed to be read from a DIY horror manual. Ironically the star of the show was the inanimate object,the house,although the two teenagers(Jenna Stone and Nicholas Harsin)did their best,Stone was pretty good in fact. The most damning indictment of this film is the fact that the house and the grounds were the most fertile spawning ground for horror imaginable. Every sprawling beam and arched design screamed of southern Gothic and hidden secrets. This proves to be of detriment to the film as the lightweight acting seems to melt into the glorious background creating an oddly vacuous feeling. More atmosphere in space.

Anytime you have a story set in Salem, you naturally expect witches, fire and dark magic. In A Haunting in Salem, you get the witch, dark events and a bit of burning. From the movie's DVD cover, it says this story was taken from actual events, so was real life as scary as fiction? The plot centered on the new sheriff of Salem and his family, who've moved into a sweet, Victorian home. It's excessively large, even for four people, but it'd been the dwelling of every sheriff who'd presided over the town for years. While unpacking, everyone experienced strange and unexplainable occurrences, but soon, the entire family is in mortal danger. Sadly, there' s not a soul around who can help with truth, let alone answers. The story presents a cycle; the very beginning shows you what happened to the previous family, then the new sheriff, complete with mental issues, came along. What you aren't given is a reason for it all. Was it revenge? Had the previous sheriffs carried a blood connection, allowing the townspeople to invite them, as a sort of sacrifice? It ended, gifting wonder as to why it even happened. The cinematography, concerning the town and surrounding views were spectacular! Even the house was lovely, but there really wasn't much as far as storyline. With little scare, A Haunting in Salem entertained, but disappointed. Cheers!

A Haunting in Salem Written by H. Perry Horton Directed by Shane Van Dyke Produced by The Asylum Stars Bill Oberst, Jr., Courtney Abbiati, Jenna Stone and Nicholas Harsin

Arriving in a small town, a sheriff and his family find the new house they've moved into is the home to a ravenous ghost that was initially burned alive as a witch in the town's past and tries to get them out of the creature's wrath before succumbing to its rampage.

This here wasn't that bad of an effort. One of the better features here comes from the film taking place in the typically creepy and chilling house which manages to utilize a great mixture of both the classic and more modern elements. The main house, full of the creaking wooden hallways and panels, sharp corners and the general air of history seeping through the walls really looks like the appropriate old- school, historically chilling house that maintains a suitable setting for the modern appliances that are at play here. Those more modern influences, from their ability to interact with the teens over the computer messenger or appearing to manipulate their visions, really begins to drive him insane as these tactics come off really well. These deliver some great hauntings as the scene of them pulling the hair from the shower drain with a tooth embedded in it, the gagging daughter hallucination or the different flash visions that keep occurring around the house showing them strung u in a hanging-style scenario which springs up quite often here to torment him. These scenes here provide the great framework for the actions leading up to the big finale in the actions of the possessed over the rest of the family which gives this one some great scenes of her utilizing the supernatural antics to attack and torment the others by popping up around them or launching attacks that are really much more impressive than expected to generate some nice bloody deaths immersed into the fine action. These here are what really works, though there's a few flaws to be found here. The biggest issue to be found is the really weak and half-hearted storyline that manages to be quite a cliché as well as goes for the cop-out explanation of everything which makes for a wholly simplistic affair. What should've been a thrilling exploration of the history of the house and the things going bump inside is instead glossed over in such a quick fashion that it really loses a lot of potential here by simply spelling everything out in one quick scene gives this one quite a lame buildup. It really could've given this one a greater sense of fear and suspense had this one gone for a more realistic route that allowed for the film to pace itself a little more. Even more to the point is the way this one goes for the overly familiar route of the ghostly haunting being presented here, from the troubled figure driven insane by what's going on to the point of madness against the disbelief of his family, the townsfolk who know it all and the ghosts coming back to seek revenge on such wrong-doers which gets targeted by their rampage all being quite familiar elements that are at play here, and all told the story here is quite disappointing. As well, the low-budget look here is another factor to hold this one back, from the cramped-in feeling of the house and the early attack scenes to the CGI and the effects in general this one tends to have the low-budget feel that's hard to get over. These here are the film's flaws.

Rated R: Language and Violence.