Haunted

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.

"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 1865, a young Indian girl (Ann Michelle) is sentenced to death in a small Arizona town after a soldier (Aldo Ray) falsely accuses her of stealing. Fast forward a hundred and eleven years and the town is now a ramshackle old movie studio inhabited solely by two brothers (Jim Negele & Brad Rearden), their blind mother (Virginia Mayo) and crabby Uncle (Ray again). Trouble arrives when Brit actress Jennifer (Michelle again) shows up and she is the Indian girl reincarnated.

Is it possible to title your movie HAUNTED and not have any ghosts in it? This is more boredom beyond than anything else. It really says something for your film when the scariest thing in it is Aldo Ray's hairy back during a lovemaking scene (my eyes!!!). Director Michael DeGaetano previously made the amusingly titled UFO: TARGET EARTH and shows a real fine hand at the nonsensical. There are some bizarre subplots like Ray searching for gold and Ray being the boys real father, both of which are dropped cold. DeGaetano also sets up a senseless bit with a phone booth being installed by a graveyard next to a house so the Indian girl can call Ray from beyond the grave. Huh? Why not just have her call the home phone? The mind numbing finale has our female lead trapped in the phone booth with Ray outside, trying to find a way to get at her. He finally figures out to break the glass. Meanwhile, our hero brothers hang out at a burger joint and don't even show up to save the chick. For Aldo Ray fans (my condolences) only!

This 1977 low-budgeter follows a dysfunctional family residing on an Arizona movie ranch/former mission, who have apparently befallen to a curse placed by a Native American woman accused of witchcraft a century prior.

"Haunted" begins in good grindhouse fashion with an inter title prologue and a topless Native American woman being forced to ride a horse into the desert to die. Fast forward a century later, and the mission from which she was ousted is now a movie ranch being renovated by two brothers; their uncle (Aldo Ray) also resides there, along with their widowed blind mother (Virginia Mayo). The arrival of a young woman, Jennifer--who may or may not be the Native American woman, reincarnated--disrupts the already muddied familial waters.

While there is little by way of logic or followthrough here a far as narrative is concerned, "Haunted" at least succeeds for its propensity for the surreal. Completely bizarre elements, such as a phone booth being installed in a cemetery at the ranch, appear in the film with little to no explanation, and their function as plot devices seems shaky and utterly random. The plot itself predates something like the Salem witch trials-inspired "The Devonsville Terror" in that it focuses on an alleged witch returning a century later to avenge her death, but "Haunted" is much less cohesive and much weirder.

There is some great desert cinematography here, and the film is extremely atmospheric. It is all punctuated by a cheapie folk music soundtrack which was written and recorded for the film, and actually released on vinyl(!) The cast here range from inept to serviceable. Aldo Ray is at his most disheveled, while Virginia Mayo leans heavily into a soapy, melodramatic portrayal of the blind mother whose supernatural ravings may not actually be delusion. Brad Rearden, who some genre fans may recognize from "The Silent Scream," portrays the younger of the two brothers.

All in all, "Haunted" is a reasonably amusing oddity whose entertainment value mainly derives from the slipshod production and sheer strangeness that tends to come from B-grade fly-by-the-seat filmmaking of this era. It is certainly the only film I've ever seen in which spirits contact the living via a cemetery phone booth on a movie ranch--and for that, it's at least something. 6/10.