A Haunting in Salem

In regard to Shane Van Dyke's other Asylum projects, A Haunting in Salem is not as wretched as Titanic II(his best is 6 Guns, which still was mediocre at best). A Haunting in Salem is still very poor however, and shows that generally Van Dyke is far from a good director. His direction has a very slapping things together sort of quality and with no subtlety or skill, in short amateurish. But there are other things outside of Van Dyke's directing that makes A Haunting in Salem as bad as it is. It does look as though it was made in a rush, with slapdash special effects and make-up that is even less convincing than badly done children's face paintings. The dialogue doesn't have sense of life, flow or sense, and the actors certainly seemed to think so because apart from Jenna Stone(the only halfway decent thing about the entire movie) they give incredibly half-hearted performances. Bill Oberst Jnr doesn't deserve the unfair personal comments he's gotten but as an actor here he shows little charisma or passion. The story was especially bad here, that it's slow-moving wouldn't have been a problem if the scares were interesting and the storytelling compelling enough. But because the scares are so predictable and the story so lacking in tension, horror, suspense, thrills or fun the pacing just felt interminably dull, so it was difficult to maintain interest. All in all, a real bore and a poorly done movie all round excepting Stone. 1/10 Bethany Cox

A haunting in Salem is anything but original. Full of your standard horror tropes and clichés you'll have seen every bit of it before but done a whole hell of a lot better.

Telling the story of a Sheriff and his family moving into a house with a dark past connected to witches (It is Salem after all) You'll see every scene coming a mile off and despite the budget very little of it even looks remotely good.

The Good:

Courtney Abbiati

The Bad:

Clichéd everything

Things I learnt from this movie:

A throw from a 3 story window will merely wind you

Based on the image on the DVD cover, I was looking forward to this movie, because it really did look interesting on the cover. Just goes to prove, don't just a movie by it's cover, eh? And also that it were to take place in legendary Salem.

While watching it, it because painstakingly clear that this movie was not really all that great. The story was good enough, though there really wasn't anything new to be seen here. Nothing to revolutionize the horror genre. So don't expect to be surprised and be sitting in awe.

The one thing that this movie had going on for it, was the atmosphere. The house itself was really nicely done, lots of really great details here, and they had managed to carve out a really greet feel to the house and its surrounding. Old houses are genuinely creepy.

As for the cast, well I didn't recognize a single one here. And in itself that was good enough, because I enjoy watching a movie with new faces in it. However, the bad thing was that there were no really overly convincing performances here. It was as it almost all people were in this movie half-heartedly. The most memorable, though, were the two teenagers; Jenna Stone and Nicholas Harsin.

My low rating of this movie is because it just wasn't scary. The movie trotted on at a really slow pace, despite things happening, what happened wasn't scary. It was a dread to look at sometimes, because I wished more scary stuff would happen. There was only a single time in the entire movie that I got spooked, and without saying too much, then it was the scene where the sheriff was laying down on the bed to go to sleep.

And one thing did puzzle me. What was the thing with the sheriffs and having to douse everything in gasoline to torch it all down when they found their families dead? I am pretty sure that kind of behavior is not what people do, much less trained police men, in such situations. That was just downright ridiculous.

If you like horror movies, then "A Haunting in Salem" is not really a great choice, because you will be sorely disappointed.

Many of the reviews I have seen of this film have been insulting to the looks of the main character: Bill Oberst, Jr. is playing a sheriff, not a beauty contestant; Besides, he plays the lead quite well, but he is not helped by a horrible, hackneyed screenplay that paints by numbers a haunted-house film that could easily have been a Lifetime made-for-TV movie. At least ten minutes of this folly comprised people walking up and down stairs. If we're going to judge a movie based on good looks, I give this one two (**) stars for Jenna Stone's feet.

And he moved into a haunted house!!! And apparently the House wants to kill him and his family as it has done for generations. Really somewhat of a snoozefest was what this was. I would not recommend. 3/10