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Haunt (2013)

Haunt is a heavy-handed little flick that lives somewhere between classics like Amityville Horror (even having a viral website campaign that tried to convince folks Haunt was based on a real paranormal event) and more modern thriller types like What Lies Beneath (which has a genre classification of "supernatural horror drama" - pfffffft. Oooohkay).

Here's the scoop: family is tragically killed in their home, one by one, ALL except for the mother. SPOILER ALERT - if ALL BUT ONE family member is killed, you should immediately assume that they are a SUSPECT and not a lucky, escaped VICTIM.

Fast forward to the new family (same head count as the old family) moving into this wonderfully under-priced for it's extravagant size house DESPITE the entire town making it known to them (albeit off screen) that the house is haunted.

If you aren't already sure at this moment that things will ABSOLUTELY GO TERRIBLY WRONG FOR THEM then you need to hand in your movie-watcher card and stick to snapchatting your homies (or whatever it is you do). On the other hand, the director wasn't sure that you'd get the point either so he graciously provided a shot of each of the new family members followed by a shot of each of the past family members that they correspond to. You know, IN CASE YOU WEREN'T PAYING ATTENTION!

One night (like, literally one night after they move in) the eldest sibling meets a random girl in the woods behind their house. Teenage sparks fly. Later, she appears in his bed. We're meant to begin suspecting she's a ghost. Until something even less believable happens to distract us from that idea: she and the son wander down to breakfast together and mom and dad are both just okay with that. What? Your teenage son appears from his room with a random girl who obviously showed up in the middle of the night and slept in his bed and your response is, "Do you know what I like about you? That you're so kind." (Seriously. That's mom's line).

Thus begins their generic teenage romance that manifests itself in her basically moving in with him and no one minds. When they aren't having off screen sex, they are contacting ghosts in his closet. #teenagersaresofuckingweird. They pique the interest of the house's resident angry, unresting spirt and ghostly mayhem ensues.

By the end of the movie someone takes a hammer to the head, someone goes to jail, the family is devastated,  and oh yeah - the mother who previously survived? She was the killer all along.

What I can say for this movie is that it's not particularly long so if you're going to sit through it, you'll have time to watch something better when you're done.

You can catch the Haunt trailer here:



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