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Critics Consensus: The Abandoned spends so much time setting up the creepy atmosphere, that it forgets to inhabit it with genuine spooks or scares.
Critic Consensus: The Abandoned spends so much time setting up the creepy atmosphere, that it forgets to inhabit it with genuine spooks or scares.
All Critics (34) | Top Critics (7) | Fresh (13) | Rotten (21) | DVD (6)
Director Nacho Cerdà succeeds in pushing the haunted-house movie into an abstract realm where the past and present fold into each other.
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?
The last thing a filmmaker named Nacho needs is more cheese.
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.
This is just a bad horror movie. There is no storytelling, really, just a string of quasi-spooky, cheap, gotcha scare moments. Made absolutely no sense to me at all...
Super Reviewer
The Abandoned is one of those horror films that had the potential of being so much more than what it turned out to be. As a whole, it is a decent film but it could have been much better. The ideas for a great horror film are there, but the execution leaves a lot to be desired. The Abandoned combines many horror genres into one film and you can clearly see that there was good ideas at work, but the filmmakers clearly couldn't tie up everything neatly and the film kind of falls apart near the end. However, there are some effective scares at work on-screen, and the cast do a fine job with the so-so material. With a few script rewrites and more thought out idea, the film would have clearly been a memorable addition to the genre. As it stands, this is only worth watching once, and you feel disappointed because this film had some good ingredients to make for a truly chilling movie. Where the film lacks is a compelling, and engaging story. I liked the film despite its flaws, but like I said, it's not something that I'd personally re-watch again and again. Another problem with the film is that it also relies on previously explored ideas from other films that we've seen before and were done better as well. The scares here are good, but there's just not enough originality with this one to really make it a compelling and enjoyable picture for fans to watch. Go in with an open mind, I thought it was a decent affair, with nothing remarkable about its plot, luckily the film had plenty of atmosphere that was dark, brooding and menacing, which made The Abandoned worth seeing. However, I was left wanting more out of the movie.
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 first half an hour or so, is overacted and overdone, leaving me feeling exasperated and bored. Its a shame, I really did want it to be better but this was one I definitely endured rather than enjoyed.
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 women from the United States is going back to her roots in Russia where she finds that she is the owner of some land in Russia. When she goes back to the property she also discovers she has a twin brother. So begins a recreation of how her father killed her mother, and she and her brother are stuck in a never ending lope of there past and parents past. Very Creepy, an excellent movie for a stormy windy night, just don't forget to lock the doors. 4 1/2 stars
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