Average Rating: 4.7/10
Reviews Counted: 33
Fresh: 12 | Rotten: 21
The Abandoned spends so much time setting up the creepy atmosphere, that it forgets to inhabit it with genuine spooks or scares.
Average Rating: 3.5/10
Critic Reviews: 5
Fresh: 1 | Rotten: 4
The Abandoned spends so much time setting up the creepy atmosphere, that it forgets to inhabit it with genuine spooks or scares.
liked it
Average Rating: 3/5
User Ratings: 32,740
An adopted girl returns to her homeland of Russia to explore the dilapidated mountain farm she has recently inherited, only to discover that it harbors a deadly secret in the feature debut from Aftermath director Nacho Cerdà. Shortly after the mysterious death of her birth mother, young Marie was adopted and brought to live in the United States. When Marie receives word that she has inherited an isolated farm in her native Russia, she soon sets out to explore the vast estate and peel away the
Feb 23, 2007 Wide
Jun 19, 2007
$1.3M
Lionsgate Films/Afterdark Films
All Critics (35) | Top Critics (6) | Fresh (14) | Rotten (21) | DVD (7)
The movie sinks so deep into deathly atmosphere that there's no life to it.
The relatively tame horrors on display here may disappoint fans of the director's gut-spelunking short Aftermath, which made him an underground hero on the abra-cadaver circuit.
Perhaps the worst offense of The Abandoned, however, is that so little effort is made by the screenwriters to make any 'sense' of it all.
Through the murk and gloom of The Abandoned; a mystery emerges: Why didn't this go straight to DVD?
Eerie frights here are more a matter of sheer dread-soaked atmosphere.
Slow, moody haunted-house shocker; not for kids.
And at the end of the equation, things just don't add up.
"This horror flick is atmospheric and often frightening, but the lack of a solid narrative creates a lethargic pace."
It is, to put it simply, a totally kick-ass horror movie that should be seen by every self-respecting fear film fan.
All haunted house movies feature labyrinthine corridors and darkened rooms, but few achieve the tangible depth and texture of The Abandoned. After so many inferior generic excursions and aberrations, Cerdà's film feels like a homecoming.
The work of a master visualist trying to walk the line between narrative and visual spectacle. The story is there, but it just sits on the side of the visual experience.
A definite fascinating and creepy mystery that leads up to a very surreal finale I enjoyed...
The Abandoned announces that the talent and tenacity Nacho Cerdà showed in his short films easily translates onto the broader, bigger canvas of the full length feature
Despite some effective atmosphere at times, this multi-European produced supernatural thriller is a tedious snoozer
A sort of haunted house story, "The Abandoned" has scary atmosphere, decent acting, an interesting setting %u2013 everything but a coherent story line.
Cerdà quickly lets slip his woeful lack of skill with a curious, "arty" predilection for switching camera focus in the middle of a shot.
...inert and inept...
Director Nacho Cerdà succeeds in pushing the haunted-house movie into an abstract realm where the past and present fold into each other.
At its best, it's an effective shocker with an atmosphere that seeps into your very bones. The problem is it's not always at its best, and when it isn't, it really isn't.
Heralds the arrival of a new talent that every horror fan should keep their eyes on, if they're not covering them with their hands.
I have to admit I was really psyched for this movie after it slipped off my HorrorFest radar. The film started off evenly enough with the delightfully grey green tones of most movies set in Moscow and Karel Roden as always was brilliant, but that's where the movie loses its interest. The rest of the film, past the
August 25, 2011Super Reviewer
One of the first films in the 8 Films to Die For, After Dark Horrorfest. If you haven't seen the films from the After Dark Horrorfest you are really missing something, this is a awesome collection. This film is from a Russian film company and a Russian Director (Nacho Cerdà) whose spin on horror is indeed intense. A
August 21, 2011Super Reviewer
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