Aspiring horror writer Max reluctantly agrees to cat-sit for his sister Anna who must take her troubled son to a clinic for testing. Anna's husband committed suicide in the house but Max isn't bothered. Well, not at first. It starts with front door knocks he thinks are kids being little assholes. Then he begins to find the front door standing open despite locking it. The strange activity slowly and inexorably escalates until he starts seeing terrifying apparitions. And I'm not kidding when I say terrifying. These scenes will seriously test your powers of bowel and bladder control. Unnerved and at his wit's end, Max begs his friend Chris to stay with him at the house. Chris, a sex addicted man-child who still lives in his mother's basement, agrees but dismisses Max's claims of paranormal activity out of hand. Chris changes his tune in a pretty damn big hurry, though and suggests Max contact a professor of demonology he knows.
We learn that Anna's husband was into weird shit and somehow managed to conjure an ancient Sumerian demon. Other ghosts, folks who died in the house, came along for the ride. The professor, Chris and Max attempt a half-assed exorcism that at first blush, appears to work. Yeah. It really doesn't. No happily ever after here.
I can't quite figure out how they managed to make Haunted so damn scary. It genuinely bugs me. The bad acting, the odd humor that's stilted and out of place...I don't know. With so many things wrong with it, I should be ripping this movie apart. Yet I just can't. It's got the thrills and chills and peek-through-your-fingers tension that I haven't experienced in ages.
If you're a horror movie fan and can handle horrible acting, you must see Haunted. If you need more incentive, there are no subtitles and the cats are not harmed.
Rating: 4 out of 5
No comments:
Post a Comment