I went with this movie not knowing much about it, so when I first saw it was POV\FF format I thought "Oh boy, not again" because last movie I saw as in fact a terrible found footage movie (not to be named here).
Then I saw Josh Stewart and thought "Ok it might not be that bad".
and to my surprise, this turned out to be not only really good P.O.V. movie, but also a very effective horror movie. Even bigger surprise was "Directed and written by Josh Stewart". Starring in all those horror movies recently really payed of for Josh, because he clearly picked up few tips on what scares the people... and that's coming from a horror veteran who nearly lost all hope in new(er) horror movies for relying either on too much jump scares or too much gore, or just plain old stupid guys doing stupid things in stupid screenplays, surviving only because script said so.
The movie is about two guys, one of them being hunter Jake (Josh Stewart), the other his friend journalist Stevie (Ronnie Gene Blevins), who go out on private ranch to hunt animals and record it so Jake would get enough footage for his planned hunting show... Then they soon realize they are the prey and something else in the woods in hunting them.
Honestly, if you want to be surprised like I was, don't read anything about this movie. Don't even read cast listing (it gives too much).
It's has good atmosphere which is missing a lot from new horror movies, it fallows "the less is more" logic which works well for the movie, it's really tense in "night in the woods" scenes and it becomes very tense and creepy when things finally get going.
Now, Josh clearly got influenced by Blair Witch Project (maybe unintentionally) because he manages to capture similar mood of that movie (only better in my opinion) and feeling of unease while characters are all alone in the woods surrounded by pitch black of the woods.
It's a horror movie that relays heavily on the sounds, which is perfect. Think original The Haunting. You'll hear that sound and know something is there, something is right in front of the characters. Sometimes it's falls alarm, sometimes it's there.
Big thanks to Josh for not relying on jump scares too much, there are few of them, but they are not annoying like in most of modern horror movies. They are not accompanied by loud orchestra music that will pierce your ears, they come naturally and usually have good build up before it, so they are earned and you as viewer are satisfied. (first jump scare is actually really good because there's a huge build up to it)
"The Haunted" reminded me of John Carpenter's "The Thing" at one point. Josh was very effective in building up tension where most of the tension comes from expecting things to happen, just like J. Carpenter played with us with "The Thing". You knew Thing was going to pop up eventually, it was just a question when it will show up. It's a same thing here. You know it's going to happen, it's just a matter of time when it will happen.
so this reminds me, why are you still and actor Josh? You're a good actor in my opinion, but you're even better director, and horror director on top of that and all of us horror fans know we need more of those these days!
