Preston Castle

Martin Rosenberg and co-writer Peter Bailey give a great ghost story using a very creepy, and spooky urban legend, and real life scene of tragedy as the location for "A Haunting At Preston Castle". The story arc, back story, and characters are well developed, even though they are your standard tropes. This is an indie horror so the film quality, although above most low budget horror, is stripped down. It is also a well produced horror with most of the scenes playing out in convincing manner, with creepy, shadowy backgrounds, typical spooky sounds and expected cheap, shock-thrill effects for sudden scares. The cast give authentic, fully committed performances of the three teens fated to fall victim to one evil, vengeful spirit. Of course the real star of "A Haunting At Preston Castle" is the real life tragedy of this haunted location-Preston Castle.

The effects are standard, low-key visual effects and spook gimmicks like falling objects, creepy sounds and characters that seem to freak out uncontrollably over everything! The CGI ghost effects are disappointing, and the entity doesn't spend nearly enough time on screen. The death scenes are pretty much off camera and only revealed during, high emotion, theatrical moments that give the last character standing some real horror to freak out over. Most things are cookie cutter moments that only give small amounts of chills and thrills. The film does have a nice pace that builds some suspense but the pay off isn't quite intense enough to give any real fright- filled moments.

Overall "A Haunting At Preston Castle" only offers a slightly above par horror movie experience. Everything is all been seen and done many- many times before, and we don't get the pleasure of seeing the kills take place. Bummer! Still it is a cool story, on level with past paranormal horrors such as "Boo" and "Death Tunnel". Plus the whole story around Preston Castle and the urban legends that formed after the tragic events is a great vehicle for this traditional 'ghost adventure gone wrong' tale. Even though the ghost is a weak and under-used part of this ghost story and you can guess just how the film will end long before the last act, "A Haunting At Preston Castle" is a nice spooky time killer.

Unfortunately, this effort at horror has to be one of the most inconsistent horror movies I've seen in the past couple of years.

The lead actress's character is the worst of all the inconsistencies. One moment she wants to get out of the place without her friend, then when the "boyfriend" decides they should get out, she wants to find her friend and nothing will stop her from searching for her.

Things just go down hill after that as it becomes a parade of clichés and horror movie tropes handled poorly

Frankly, I've seen this movie before and it has been done better.

Spend your time watching something.

Actually, why did we come here in the first place? Oh yeah, for no real reason at all. Apart from the fact that we wanted to film everything and leave the footage for someone to edit ... wait! Ah yes the downfalls of those "Found Footage" movies. And when I say those, I speak of specific ones, not all of them.

But this is a prime example, why the let's call it sub-genre got a bad rep. There are scares thrown in here from time to time and for a low budget movie, they are not that bad. But the question is, if you really care? I don't think you will. And the characters are not even that annoying (all of the time that is) .. let's best forget about it/them ... something already been done by others!

Hello, I am the Prime Minister. Today I will tell you about this movie.

It is not good. I like horror movies, even the ones that are so bad they become hilarious. This is not one of those movies.

The premise of this movie is that 1 college chick is trying to get her best friend hooked up with this college guy after a breakup. They hang out for a few seconds at a lake and then he drives them over to a spooky place so they can spook each other. However, the best friend is only there to bone him and the 1 college chick doesn't even want to be there at all.

None of them act like real humans do. Yes, there are many moments where there is clearly just bad acting, but also the personality given to these characters is flat and not relatable.

The horror is so bad I cringed a few times, but other times I put my face in my palms. The only people who would be convinced by this are little children. The actors do not know how to portray fear, and certainly do not know how to act like someone is dying. The only person dying here is me, from how bad this is.

In my book, the only criteria for a good horror movie is actors who know how to portray a frightened human who is fearing for their life. Fear is a very powerful emotion, which this movie mocks.

This is also NOT a Found Footage movie. FFs are my favorite sub-genre, however the "Camera" parts are just a girl who can't afford a cell phone for Snapchat. It adds nothing to the movie experience and doesn't even need to be there.

Also, this movie is made up of poorly- shot jump scares that you can see coming from a kilometer away. I even started counting the seconds in-between jump scares. If you made this into a drinking game, you would drown. My profile picture is the face I often made while watching the scenes. Please, I pray for you and your eyes.

Preston Castle/The Haunting of Preston Castle is the 8th movie in the Paranormal Investigations franchise and so far the one with the highest budget at 3.4 million! Really quite astonishing from a franchise made up of hyper low budget usually found footage movies.

Now the 7th movie turned a weird corner as it starred and was directed by Hollywood star Michael Rooker. Yet even that only had a million at it's disposal so what did they do here with over three times that?

Well, I don't know where the money went...........at all. It's a tiny and entirely unknown cast, the quality is really quite poor and it's one of those haunting films where nothing actually happens so little to no money was needed for sfx.

It tells the story of three friends who go exploring in an abandoned asylum. You know, that plot that literally hundreds of these things have used. Anyway in the 78 minute running time nothing happens other than it's successful attempt at boring the viewer.

So again where in the blue hell did the money go?! Best catering ever?

Awful stuff that will appeal only to the most diehard of sub-genre fans.

The Good:

Nope

The Bad:

Poor camerawork

Badly edited

Nothing happens