Haunted

I worked as a wrangler during the old west parts of this production wrangling up to four horses. Aldo Ray was difficult as he was always drunk and production was always waiting for him to show up. The western scenes were filmed at the old Apacheland Movie Studio east of Apache Junction Arizona. Working the set I felt like a high school drama class could have done a better job.

This film was in most video stores during the 80s but hasn't been seen much in the past few years. Though it's no horror classic, it does have a unique flavor. It was filmed in 1976 but only released 3 years later. It's better than most of the many made-for-video horror fests. Haunted is set in a desert ghost town and features great photography. The storyline is about an attractive female visitor to the town who looks just like a woman who was executed in the same area 100 years ago. Haunted is very low budget. There are only about a dozen people in the cast but the film is still competently made and has some eerie moments. It also has some unusual folk songs (in fact,a soundtrack from this movie was released, how many horror movies can say that?) The film's poster is a bit misleading as it shows a person impaled on the letters in the title. However, the film's body count is very low and the blood and guts is almost non-existent. Not that it matters though as the story will keep viewers hooked. Haunted's chief asset is Aldo Ray. Once upon a time, Ray worked in major Hollywood productions but by this time, he was taking any part that was offered. At the start, Ray's character is nasty. He then gets nastier and nastier while the film goes on. By the end, he is really off the deep end. One may wonder if he is acting or going nuts in real life while the scene is being shot! In any event, Haunted is one of the few obscure horror films that is worth your time!

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.

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.