The Abandoned 4/5 reviewed by Corey

The Abandoned is a wonderfully scary movie.

Oh, and go figure: it's rated R and it's got no "Japanese weird crap" in it. Point and case. Horror can be done well. It's just not done well very often. I won't pretend here to know anything about the director or the actors or the writer or anything: I have no idea who any of these people are. I didn't recognize a single name attached to this film. Quentin Tarantino didn't produce it. Thank God, Eli Roth didn't direct it. And the lead actress? She's a Russian woman, about forty years old. You won't see her flip the lights on at home, realize they are out, yell "Is anybody there?" and then proceed to strip naked and take a shower in the darkness.

In fact, by all accounts, this is the smartest horror flick I've ever seen. The story is simple, as it should be: A film producer, who was brought from Russia to America as a child, returns to her homeland. Her mother died when she was very young and she is told that the biggest clues she may have to determining what actually happened would be at the farmhouse of her natural parents. When she gets there, though, things begin to unravel: her guide disappears, she meets a man who seems to be there for the same reason, and, uh...she also runs into some ghosts. Yes, this is a ghost/haunted house story. And it is glorious.

Incidentally, Seth, Chris and I were the only ones in the theatre when the movie began late in the night. We had a seat between each of us for our own little space, and I still spent a good ten minutes or so of the movie in what amounts to a "scary-movie-fetal-position." I watched some of the movie through my fingers. I haven't done that since I was a kid watching Jurassic Park for the first time. The first scare seems to last FOREVER: there is, quite literally, a ten-minute scene of her exploring the house upon her arrival with a flashlight. There are noises, but there is no music. At all. For ten minutes. It messes you up so bad.

Luckily, for all the time the movie spends in suspense, the payoff is huge. The ghosts are absolutely terrifying, the little sound bites that fade in and out randomly scared the crap out of me, and I never felt safe watching this film. That's the glory of a great scary movie.

It's not gory very often, but when it is, it's definitely gory. If you get a huge kick out of that, uh, have fun? I don't know. I don't really care one way or the other as long as blood isn't spurting out in slow-motion or anything.

The frenetic "I'm scared so I'm running the opposite direction of that ghost" scenes are well-edited and cut. The camera helps the audience get into it by shaking a lot at these scenes, but they aren't overly long, so it's no Bourne Supremacy.

The movie isn't perfect. The "twist" ending is trite, undeveloped and just doesn't make sense. The completely unnecessary naked chick near the end will either make you laugh or really really creep you out. I laughed, almost hysterically, but it was probably because I was creeped out. It's also far from titillating.

Once more for kicks and giggles: titillating.

The dialogue can often come off as redundant: a habit is made of saying things that are painfully obvious to the audience and to the other characters. "Look, a gun is on the floor." Ah yes, I wouldn't have seen that had you not mentioned it to the character who was bending down to pick it up. It was noticeable, but didn't really detract too much from the film.

The Abandoned is simply horror done right. 4/5 because...like the scale says, if you're a horror fan, you probably want to own it.

No more SEE/DON'T SEE for me. In the words of Marla from Fight Club, "How's this for not making a big deal?"...

SEE this if...
- You like scary movies.

DON'T see this if...
- You don't like scary movies.