Skip to main content

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:



Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Rebuttal: 17 Disturbing Horror Movies You Will Never Watch Again

When I'm not watching movies, I'm reading about movies. I stumble across all kinds of articles, blog posts, book excerpts, etc. in my quest to absorb as much movie knowledge as possible. Now, I'm snotty and loud-mouthed and opinionated but I'd never begrudge another human their opinion. Seriously. You're absolutely welcome to have any opinion about any thing you want. However, I must warn you, if I think your opinion is stupid, I'm absolutely going to say so. I've recently stumbled on an article completely  brimming with so many idiotic opinions that I'm actually compelled to craft a response. Here's the gist of the original article: there are some horror movies out there that are so disturbing , you'll only ever want to watch them once. I've have taken her original list and refuted her claims without pulling her entire article over. You can read the original article here . Let's start at the beginning, with her opening statement

Escape From Tomorrow

I love creative people who are willing to take risks with their art. I appreciate the refusal to do things by the rules. I'm also terribly impatient with mediocrity. Enter  Escape From Tomorrow . Created by a team of rogue filmmakers, the movie was shot in the video mode of high-end still cameras. Actors shared scripts and shooting locations across their smartphones. Shot on location at Disney World, the parks were completely unaware this was all going on right under their mouse ears. I wanted to love Escape From Tomorrow. More than that, I wanted to be completely taken with its ingenuity and creativity and - oh yes - its originality. And there is really a simple brilliance to their covert plan; all families are roaming around the parks, taking videos and chatting on their phones. Just blend the fuck in, act like you belong, and you won't get caught. Too bad the movie can be summed up as: ambitious but Rubbish. As you can imagine (or possibly know), there was a ton of con

The Witch (2015)

You know the drill - there's ALWAYS spoilers. Don't want the movie ruined for you, come back after you've seen it. Also - I'm still without an editor - typos and bad grammar await you! I keep hoping that the cultural obsession with zombies will end; literally every other damn movie that comes 'round seems to feature some sort of shambling, undead being bent on devouring the weak flesh of regular humans. Once upon a time, zombies have have been used as a metaphor for the blind consumerism created by our capitalist society, or the perceived depletion of resources by immigrants, or even the ravages of time and disease on our frail bodies. Now it seems that the deeper social commentary has been lost as audiences mindlessly consume "zombie fiction" in an attempt to keep up with trends. ( How very meta - a film buddy of mine commented on this assessment! ) All of this is just a sideways rant, leading up to my actual point: it seems that zombie may actually