Haunt

This and "The Woman" by Lucky McKee are my top horror films for this month. But this one feels more like a thriller than actual cold-blooded horror. It was similar to the first season of American Horror Story, except vice versa. Liana Liberato who was excellent in the teen drama "Trust" does a solid job with what she's given. She and Harrison Gilbertson make a realistic teenage couple, although the sparks flying did happen a little fast...after all it is just a movie. Ione Skye who I remember as the introvert from Say Anything makes a charismatic mother, but Jacki Weaver from Animal Kingdom and Stoker who has EVERYTHING to do with the haunting really ties the knot. The visual effects are simple, but effective. For a low-budget indie film, it's beautifully shot. All in all it's very entertaining, has a nice depressing ending (none of that Disney stuff), and feels like a genuine scary story told on the big screen. But a word of caution to hardcore genre fans, don't expect another The Conjuring. This is a love story with horror and demons and goblins and what have you woven in. Nice job everyone. -A Monster

The premise of the movie starts good, this is a little ghost story, all the ingredients are there, the house, the tragedy and... the communication device, in this case, a EVP Box from the sixties. The 2 leads are well developed and although they don't display good acting skills, it is clear that they have chemistry together and that alone make up for all the script plot holes. The rest of the cast flows in development of their roles through the movie but in the last act they suddenly disappear from screen for no other reason than to focus on the two leads, this results in a big miss because we suddenly stop seeing them and that empty space turns the whole concept upside down, degrading what was well done in the first acts. The movie tries to tie the story together from pieces to puzzle to big picture with the revelation right at the ending. Hopefully it works, for the majority of the movie, sadly, the ending is incredible anti climatic. I can see the director trying a different thing pretending to be original but the result came out incredible wrong, not only ruins the movie, it doesn't explain in any meaningful way anything except a few loose ends.. In fact the final declarations sounds more like "yes we didn't knew what to do anymore so we finish the movie like this.. you like it?" Well, NO, did I spent 2 hours of my life for this???, I've should had known better. This is clearly goes into the director and writers fault. There are movies that get saved by the ending and left the viewers at least with a satisfactory conclusion, then there are movies that are dull through and through, but the worst of their kind are movies like this one, with an nice premise, good development and stupid ending, that is unforgivable because it gives you a weird feeling of bad taste on your mouth, a feeling of being cheated. Do not waste your time, it's really not worth it as there are much better movies out there.

I actually liked this story a lot. Loved the characters, the situation, the plot and definitely the cinematography. The two lead kids were very convincing and very likable. You rooted for them the whole time. My only complaint is that there could have been a lot more jump out of your seat scary tactics they should have used to add more horror. The setting was perfect as a cold old house somewhere in Canada most likely. Very isolated and creepy while also being very picturesque and beautiful. Everything that was done in the movie was done well, lots of good production value. Direction and acting was very convincing by all the characters. The scary old box they find looks really vintage and perfect for what it is supposed to be. I just wish the movie was scarier.

What a boring, unoriginal and tedious waste of time! This is not even close to a limp horror film. Not sure why people are reviewing it with so many stars as its utter tripe!!! Don't waste your time watching this movie, it has no interesting characters, so why would you care about them. This movie trundles along at such a slow pace you wonder why you started watching it. The plot (if there is one) makes no sense and has so many holes in it..... well its just ridiculous! Nothing scary about this..... I'd rather watch The Purge... and that is crap!

Nothing really special here, a story about a haunted house, two characters that weren't quite exploited enough, scares that came so late and soft, a twist that didn't manage to stand tall. It wanted to be something, you can clearly see it tried, but somewhere, it failed, somewhere along the plot development, when they tried to make it more than it could be. In the end it is a movie about a haunted house, so don't get your hopes too high, cause originality is something too hard to achieve, working around with just 2 actors make the viewer feel deserted, and scares that won't come when they suppose to, leave him even more alone. Not so many reasons to recommend this one: yes, average horror at its best, a somewhat effort put into it, but still, it falls flat. Sorry to say so. It will come down to everyone's personal opinion, but all horror movie fans, will feel that they didn't get the larger slice here.

so i watched this movie expecting something good because of the reviews in my usual movie site and what i found was a slow paced, slightly confusing set of plot points that kinda came out of nowhere and really didn't get anywhere. for one thing the characters...a family of 5 in which at least two of the characters didn't really add anything to the movie. one of the characters, the younger sister, seemed to have an important role but in the end had nothing useful to add except for a creepy warning to her brother and girlfriend. the parents were extremely open minded considering they allowed the son to bring in a strange girl they've never meet to sleep with him on a nightly bases. the parents themselves were only there to explain that the son ...was in fact an 18 year old who had parents...and that's it, they could have made the son a young professional who meets a cute girl, eliminating the parents and sisters and would have achieved the same result. so as characters go, they wasted there importance to the point of uselessness. another plot point that made no sense was a magic radio box that could speak to ghost. that just kinda came out of nowhere and stayed with no apparent back story or at least an explanation of why it was there in the first place. the movie itself was slow paced with some good jump scares but really didn't get me excited at all...the ending was slightly anticlimactic and honestly boring. i'm a horror fan and to me this was one of those generic atmospheric horrors that just never built up to something special...to bad because they could have gone in so many great directions with this but instead wasted a lot of great opportunities to make this special.

This movie just goes from "interesting" to "uh.. that was it?", REALLY fast. It starts with typical "family moves into a haunted house" bit but it feels like movie tries to copy clichés only and is happy not following through different sub-plots. For example, you might think that a young girl talking to a herself alone in her room & scratching family member's eyes from a photo will lead to something really messed up later on.. but then you'd be wrong since movie doesn't do anything with that setting, doesn't progress it at all. It's like the director had a list of horror cliché's to add and that was it. Also, this movie throws in so many jump "scares" that you will soon start predicting the next jump. It's ridiculous, not scary at all. The only positive thing out of it is that the atmosphere during horror sequences was actually well done. The acting wasn't exactly bad as well.

firstly, there's no great complicated story line here but what there is ,is a great little spooky movie with a very very dark vein . I enjoyed the acting and the performances from all the players..in fact if anything id liked to have seen more screen time from the rest of the family.. I almost get the feeling this is part of a further story arc the way its played out. Ever had a cream bun just when you fancied one well this movie is kinda like that...its not high cuisine but it is perfect if you are looking for exactly this kind of film. I personally loved the ending...there's another film that used the same idea which I wont mention as it would tip the films ending off... but I liked it. simple effective effects and storyline combined with subtle performances give this movie a much higher quality feel to it than it probably looked on paper. great film with a surprisingly PG rating given the great scary atmosphere and context of the story line.. just shows you don't need nudity and explicit gore shots to make a cool little film especially one with such a twisted ending lol

Such a pity, this movie started with so much promise, then seemed to lose it's way and quite possibly money and time. Was building to quite an interesting spooky story, then WHAM!, out of nowhere it ends, with so many loose ends, so many questions, so many "eh!, but what about" questions. "why did that happen" moments. Quite honestly, you watch this and you feel, well, cheated!. Such a pity, there were a few, suspend your belief moments, but weren't too niggly. But ultimately, this movie was a mish mash of Coulda, woulda, shoulda moments it was just too hard to ignore or forgive. You watch this movie and you feel time was not on it's side. It's the shell of a movie that could have been.!!. ;(

I love good horror flicks, but I find that they are few and far between. Most of them are over the top with gore and silly situations. This movie, much like The Conjuring, creates a chilling atmosphere and that dread at the pit of your stomach. The opening scene where a father is desperately trying to connect with his dead children, for example, is done extremely well. The production value, especially the cinematography, is top notch. The young lead actors go a fine job and draw you in. Jackie Weaver continues to impress and anchors the film with a menacing presence. There is a point where the story drags a bit, but all in all, I highly recommend it. You should not watch it alone.