The Abandoned

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.

One of the original "After Dark Horrorfest: 8 Films to Die For," (ADHF) and the only one to get a nationwide release in theaters, The Abandoned tells the story of an American movie producer (Marie) who receives word that she has inherited a house and land in the back woods of Russia. She sets off to examine the property, which she has no interest in keeping, apparently just out of curiosity. There she meets a man claiming to be her fraternal twin brother (Nicolai), but the house appears to have its own plans for both of them. Their birthday nearing, they prepare to face their dark past.

This was my second time seeing this movie, and for some reason the first time I saw it I got the complete wrong idea about what happened at the end. It is way more psychological than your run-of-the-mill haunted house movie. There are only 2 or 3 "phantoms" in the movie that don't show up very often, so most of the "scares" are through the suspense of not knowing when the next horrible thing is going to happen.

I really love the setting of this film. The dark woods, withered house, and misty lake all contribute to the chilling atmosphere...you couldn't really ask for a better set for a movie such as this.

There aren't that many special effects, but for the most part they are above average. The makeup on the crazy ghost zombie things is very convincing.

The acting is quite good for an independent film full of unknowns. There are really only two full characters in the movie, all others besides Marie and Nicolai can easily be considered extras (except maybe the main villain ghost thing, which gets a few minutes of screen time). I'm not exactly sure how good of an actor Karel Roden (Nicolai) is because of his Russian accent, but he appears to be acceptable.

The storyline was not my favorite, but when everything came together it ended up being a solid independent horror flick, definitely one of the better ADHF films.

Final Score - 8/10

This movie is a horror movie where the cinematography and the eerie atmosphere is what carries this movie most of the way through. There is however few plot holes and stuff that happens that doesn't make any sense sometimes. Everything seems dreamlike which is sort of a positive because I liked the vibe in this film. But there are just a lot of unanswered questions which is fine in some cases, but the movie comes off a bit too vague. It has few explanations in the dialogue but the premise isn't all that clear. Especially when it comes to the supernatural stuff your just going to have to go with it. There is some coincidences but it just doesn't make much sense as well sometimes. Also what is this supernatural stuff that is haunting them and the situation they are in isn't developed very well either. It just seems everything is happening is all a dream which works in some parts but falters in others. Even at the end your left with a bunch of questions like if this really happened or if it's a dream. This movie reminded me of the video games "Silent Hill" and could have been is decent adaptation if the stuff that is happening is explained a bit more and if there were a bit of other elements added into the movie. This is a horror movie with some creepy atmosphere but just doesn't have a plot that is developed very well, but the twists was decent at times. There is also some scary parts here and there that has a bit of tension in it and can also be haunting at times as well. For anyone that likes horror movies or like the feeling of being scared just might enjoy this flick.

6.8/10

Reading over almost every single one star review on this, it would appear that every single person that ranked it as such cannot follow even a fairly simple plot as this (I see lots of "It makes no sense" and "Nothing is explained" comments.). Really sad to see good gems in the rough like this getting trashed by people that frankly shouldn't be reviewing movies, maybe I'm an elitist, I don't know, but I'm sorry, if you couldn't follow the story of The Abandoned, I really don't know what to say.

This movie is kept from being a top tier creepy movie simply by pacing issues, that's probably my main problem with it which drags it's score into the 7 range (might as well be a 10 for the amount of drek horror made since the mid 90's). This movie has impeccable atmosphere, the kind you can cut through with a knife which is oh so important for any great haunted house film. The atmosphere itself was incredibly creepy, the director should have let the audience just stew in that a bit before getting right to the point so to speak within minutes of walking into the house, it really lessens the impact of the imagery and the antagonists in this movie, but doesn't destroy it by any means.

What stood out the most to me is that it was a very original idea (as far as i know, I have never seen anything quite like it) and like The Baby's room, I love wildly original takes on my favorite horror genre, the haunted house movie. It's deliciously dark without relying on cheap gore, but if that's what you're looking for, there's some incredibly brutal and disturbing scenes in it. The story and acting and characters are good enough to be very compelling but at the same time, I think a little more character development couldn't have hurt. yet we have people screaming "TOO SLOW TOO BORING" and 1 starring it so this is why character development is sadly all but dead in horror movies.

The imagery and photography was fantastic, sound appropriately creepy if severely overdone at times but only a few times.

Just see it. Even if it doesn't scare you like it didn't scare me (i can count the movies on one hand that have achieved this, this is the holy grail of horror for me.), it's very creepy and quite unnerving and just an all around enjoyable flick. Definitely gets the thumbs up from me.

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.