The Haunted starts with a load of scrolling text that claims the film is based on true events blah, blah, blah you know the sort of thing. It's 'Halloween 1955' & Janet Smurl (Sally Kirkland) remembers her childhood & the spooky stories that surround a house in her town. Jump forward to 'August 1975', Janet & her husband Jack (Jeffrey DeMunn) their two young daughters & Jack's Mum & Dad Mary (Louise Latham) & John (George Wallace) move into that very same house. At first things go well except for a few minor harmless unexplained occurrences. Now jump forward to 'March 1985' when the real trouble begins, Janet has had a further two daughters but things take a sinister turn for the worse. Janet begins to hear voices, she sees a ghost, electrical fires & all sorts of paranormal phenomena that gradually gets more & more threatening. The Smurl's seek help from the Church but they refuse to perform an exorcism, then they turn to psychic detectives & finally the press in a desperate attempt to rid their house of the ghosts & stop the family from being driven apart.
Directed by Robert Mandel I thought The Haunted was a dull supernatural horror film. The script by Darrah Cloud is based on a book co-written by Janet & Jack Smurl (probably the real ones!) & offers nothing new or exciting to the haunted house horror sub-genre, one of my least favourite type's of horror films. I've always found these type's of films really dull & predictable, I mean people hearing sinister voices, things opening & closing on their own, lights exploding & lots of boring melodramatics involving the break down of a family unit, it's all here, it hardly gets the pulse racing & The Haunted does nothing to distinguish itself from loads of other boring haunted house tales. The origins of the ghosts are almost left totally unexplained as is the throwaway line that puberty (the two daughters grow up which is why it takes 10 years before the serious stuff starts to kick in) in someway gives the spirits their powers & you can't help but feel if they had just moved it would have saved a lot of trouble & emotional anguish on their parts! Having said that I suppose on a certain level it's watchable, the character's are OK, it moves along at a sedate pace but it's never excruciatingly boring & the supernatural activity is not too overblown or silly. The Haunted does what it sets out to do I suppose, it's far from the best or most exciting film ever but I've seen worse & I can't really criticize any specific part of it other than personally didn't really like it. Average at best.
Director Mandel turns in a really lifeless film, it's bland, forgettable, flat, does not have one single scary scene in it & lacks any sort of atmosphere. The house chosen is just so ordinary & the film never builds or sustains any sort of tension or threat. The Haunted feels more like a family drama/soap opera as much as it does a horror, since I was hoping for a horror I can't say anything else other than I was disappointed by it.
Technically this made-for-TV film lives up to that billing, the whole film feels & looks like the cheap TV film that it most definitely is. It's competently made & that's the best thing I say say about it, just don't expect a visual treat! The acting was decent enough but I don't particularly remember anyone from it in either a positive or negative way.
The Haunted is an adequate ghost film, it didn't do anything for me but I will concede that maybe there is an audience for a film such as this out there, somewhere. If you like dull soap opera melodramatics in your films then The Haunted is for you, if however you like decent horror, atmosphere, scares & a bit of excitement then I suggest that The Haunted most definitely isn't for you.
Directed by Robert Mandel I thought The Haunted was a dull supernatural horror film. The script by Darrah Cloud is based on a book co-written by Janet & Jack Smurl (probably the real ones!) & offers nothing new or exciting to the haunted house horror sub-genre, one of my least favourite type's of horror films. I've always found these type's of films really dull & predictable, I mean people hearing sinister voices, things opening & closing on their own, lights exploding & lots of boring melodramatics involving the break down of a family unit, it's all here, it hardly gets the pulse racing & The Haunted does nothing to distinguish itself from loads of other boring haunted house tales. The origins of the ghosts are almost left totally unexplained as is the throwaway line that puberty (the two daughters grow up which is why it takes 10 years before the serious stuff starts to kick in) in someway gives the spirits their powers & you can't help but feel if they had just moved it would have saved a lot of trouble & emotional anguish on their parts! Having said that I suppose on a certain level it's watchable, the character's are OK, it moves along at a sedate pace but it's never excruciatingly boring & the supernatural activity is not too overblown or silly. The Haunted does what it sets out to do I suppose, it's far from the best or most exciting film ever but I've seen worse & I can't really criticize any specific part of it other than personally didn't really like it. Average at best.
Director Mandel turns in a really lifeless film, it's bland, forgettable, flat, does not have one single scary scene in it & lacks any sort of atmosphere. The house chosen is just so ordinary & the film never builds or sustains any sort of tension or threat. The Haunted feels more like a family drama/soap opera as much as it does a horror, since I was hoping for a horror I can't say anything else other than I was disappointed by it.
Technically this made-for-TV film lives up to that billing, the whole film feels & looks like the cheap TV film that it most definitely is. It's competently made & that's the best thing I say say about it, just don't expect a visual treat! The acting was decent enough but I don't particularly remember anyone from it in either a positive or negative way.
The Haunted is an adequate ghost film, it didn't do anything for me but I will concede that maybe there is an audience for a film such as this out there, somewhere. If you like dull soap opera melodramatics in your films then The Haunted is for you, if however you like decent horror, atmosphere, scares & a bit of excitement then I suggest that The Haunted most definitely isn't for you.