It's in the Blood

HAUNTED is a largely uninteresting low budget horror feature notable only for casting Lance Henriksen in a leading role. It's an essential two-hander in which a father and son head into the woods to bond but soon find themselves tracked down by a mysterious demonic creature. Is there really something stalking them or are dark secrets from the past to blame?

The problem is that you won't really care because this film is sloppily written, focusing too much on uninteresting twists for the most part. The best thing about it by far is Henriksen, who delivers a performance of depth and disturbance, ably putting across the mind of a harrowed man. Henriksen has long been a cult favourite in supporting roles so it's nice to see him get the chance to shine here.

Unfortunately the actor playing opposite him, Sean Elliot as the son, just can't keep up with his performance and he feels wooden, his character dull. The cinematography is pretty poor, with too many tricks trying to hide the low budget, and in the end it's a film where nothing much really happens. There's little insight come the finale, just unpleasant gore effects and a production in need of a proper story.

Sheriff Russell (Lance Henriksen) and his son (Sean Elliot) find themselves trapped in the deep woods, confronting not only their own tattered relationship, but also a lurking creature. IT'S IN THE BLOOD is a survival / horror movie, as well as a story about overcoming the past.

The monster is well-realized, and the CGI is -blessedly- kept to a minimum. Fans of Mr. Henriksen already know that he's been in a host of rather dubious films. This one isn't bad, due almost entirely to Henriksen's performance...

It's not confusing, it's just so laden with obvious symbolism and deliberate ambiguity (like all too many faux "intellectual" student films) that it sloshes about struggling for "depth" and "deeper meaning" while never really delivering either. Out of focus shots and repetitious edits might mask some no-budget deficiencies but this film HAD a budget - they just didn't know what to do with it. Except hire Lance Henriksen. This is literally a case where it's worth watching just for the man's performance. It's a shame they didn't have a more focused script to be worthy of his involvement. Instead we have a twenty-minute arty student film stretched ponderously out to eighty minutes (yet feels a lot longer) when the same premise, intelligently presented (and grounded by Mr. Henriksen) could have made an excellent film at twice the length. The father and lost son dynamic; the horrifying incident in their past; the injury in the woods and, yes, even the threat of "something else in the woods" as a metaphor, all of these could have successfully been presented in a coherent fashion - even realistically as in Deliverance - instead of obscured by the art-house/third-year film student approach that makes this film far less than what it could have been. It's not that the film is simply bad - it isn't - it's just another example of "with a little more effort it could have been so much better." And then it might have been the showcase Lance Henriksen has long deserved.

I can tell you one thing about this weird horror, you love it or hate it and I still don't know what to think about it. It do has a few creepy moments but it also got a lot of talking between father and son. I'm sure that once seeing it you will argue what it's all about. Who are those creature(s). What happened to the family?

You have to watch very closely to get it all, it's full of flash backs but it also has moments of terror. Even the way that it was shot will leave some people wandering why it was shot that way. They used a lot of light and smoke in the wood to give some special(call it arty) shots.

The best way to see this psychological horror is just by watching it and not knowing what's it all about. The acting is superb so on that part it works, it even got a graphic gore shot of a leg, it's all there but for some this flick will leave you with a few questions.

Gore 1/5 Nudity 0/5 Effects 3/5 Story 3/5 Comedy 0/5

This movie is hard to follow because there are a lot of scenes in which it looks like a bad drug trip and it's confusing. The best quality in the film is that the actors are all extremely good actors, including the villain. The scenes between October and Iris are extremely touching. Seriously, I haven't seen that kind of love displayed so well on screen in a while. Which made the scenes with the villain all the more awful. If it weren't for the trippy stuff that made this movie hard to follow I may have enjoyed this movie. Then again, the scenes with the villain are pretty disturbing. I watched this movie because I'm a Lance Henricksen fan. He's a very talented actor and I'd love to see him in more movies. Or bring him back to TV! Anyone remember the show Millennium?