Haunted

"Haunted" is a crappy, low budget film that, sadly, has the distinction of starring Aldo Ray and VIrginia Mayo--two decent Hollywood stars of the 1950s that were apparently down on their luck and needed work. It's a real shame, as no actors could have made this lousy film watchable.

The story begins with a bizarro 'execution'. A convicted Native American, Abinaki, is stripped naked and made to ride a rorse into the desert to die. It seems like an incredibly uncertain AND gratuitous way to kill her!

The film then jumps to a dying desert town in the present. Instead of showing it in the first scene, one of the characters gives an exposition where he explains that the Indian lady was accused by an evil priest...and she vowed revenge on him and everyone else associated with her death. Additionally, a mentally ill blind woman (Mayo) goes on and on about the death lady....and it's rather embarrassing to watch. Eventually (and it takes a LONG time), bad things start happening...all thanks to a vengeful Abinaki.

This movie had a very low budget and many of the supporting actors didn't seem like actors at all. Their delivery was terrible....though the dialog they were given was awful as well...often coming off as bombastic and self-important. The songs are generally bad as well...with some hilariously bad lyrics.

So is it worth seeing? For most of you, NO!! But, if you like seeing actors committing career suicide as Ray and Mayo do in this one, it's worth a look.

OK, the movie. Way back in the olden days some cowboys and a priest decided that an Indian woman needed to die. The reason is completely unmemorable. They put her on a horse, take her shirt off and send her packing to die in the desert of Arizona. Before they set her off, she says something to the extent of her haunting this land. Off she goes. Enter present day. A family living in a ghost town witness a telephone booth going up in the middle of a grave yard. The mother of the two boys is blind after an accident involving a naked horse woman. The accident killed her husband. She believes that they are being haunted.

This movie gets cheese points because of the laughable scripting, acting, dialog, and the original songs that appear in the movie. There was even a soundtrack released to accompany the movie. In a terrible amusing scene, we see the Uncle chasing the woman into the phone booth with a sharp stick he wittled with a knife (where the hell is the knife?). The only blood in this movie is where Uncle Collage Grad stabs him self with his wittled stick. I'd also like to know who let them use the set from Wild Wild West.

"Haunted" starts with a prologue written on the screen and, immediately after, the same text is processed into a sequence as well. It certainly isn't the biggest blunder you can make, but it does somewhat illustrate the intelligence level of the film. Either you do a written text or you do a sequence, but not both. Then again, the pre-opening credit sequences, taking place during the US Civil War, are undeniably the best parts of the entire film.

A beautiful Indian woman gets falsely accused of witchery by a corrupt priest, and she's sentenced to a very strange and perverse death. The poor girl, named Abanaki, is tied to a horse, stripped naked, and then sent into the dry and hot desert to die. Some say - and I quote the prologue - that her spirit roamed around for more than a hundred years for revenge. And guess what happens a hundred years later!

"Haunted" is also the type of clichéd horror film in which characters reincarnate as exact replicas of their ancestors. The corrupt priest reincarnates as a grumpy ranch owner, and Abanaki returns as a beautiful traveling girl whose car breaks down at that same ranch. This film had the potential to be a simple but effective supernatural horror tale, but writer/director Alessandro De Gaetano stuffs his screenplay with lots of senseless nonsense, dead-end twists, dull sub plots, and insignificant supportive characters. There's a phone booth in the middle of a cemetery, sinister wooden statues without any purpose, an elderly blind lady playing the organ and fantasizing about sex with her deceased husband (while she actually has the plump and hairy Aldo Ray on top of her), and two dorky brothers chasing after the lewd Abanaki-reincarnation.

I can tolerate quite a lot of weirdness, but the complete lack of action and gruesome deaths in "Haunted" is unforgivable. There's one notable highlight, involving spilled petrol and a spark from a light bulb, but it's not enough. De Gaetano put too much time and effort in the dedicated soundtrack, and the casting of Anne Michelle (in a successful attempt to find a girl with perfect breasts).

In Arizona during the Civil War, a Native American woman is accused of witchcraft, tied to a horse and left to die in the desert. One hundred years later, the descendants of the woman's accusers start being killed off, and an Englishwoman becomes convinced that she is the reincarnation of a long-dead Indian priestess. This movie was filmed on location in Arizona over a period of 24 days on a budget of $250,000. According to writer-director Michael De Gaetano, budgeting issues necessitated that portions of the script be un-filmed, resulting in "a good deal of the philosophical depth of the film" disappearing. The result is a boring movie with huge gaps in the story, and plenty of historical inaccuracies. This is all topped with some ridiculous performances by a very visibly drunk Aldo Ray and Virginia Mayo' in a non sensical role who chews the scenery and delivers her lines awkwardly. Ann Michelle ( a white British actress) plays the Apache priestess, and sits atop a horse, topless, wearing a black, braided wig. A soundtrack album was released featuring such songs as You Make Me Feel the Music by Carol Douglas, Indian Woman by Billy Vera, A Distant Time (Love Theme from 'Haunted') by Freya Crane, and How Can I Tell Judy by Herbert Oscar Anderson.

This film wastes absolutely no time showing titty, as a young Native American girl convicted of gold thievery is stripped and tied to a horse, sent forth into the desert to die alone. Said nubile was innocent, and vows her revenge.

100 years have passed, and the old mining town is now a decrepit and unutilized movie ranch. Aldo Ray and (blind)Virginia Mayo are among the few living there. Some guys install a telephone booth in the cemetery, and a girl in transit has car trouble and must stay there overnight. Sound interesting so far? It's not, quite frankly, and it doesn't get much better...in fact, HAUNTED barely registers as a horror film, as the supernatural foundations of the story are barely tapped. I did enjoy the music, however, the theme song especially...a highly orchestral bubblegum pop anthem that almost has the sound of a 007 theme.

Overall, a nothing little puff of a movie which wastes an able cast, and offers too little to make it recommendable. Subtract yourself.

3/10.