Review of A Haunting at Silver Falls (2013) by Bill R — 06 May 2014

A Haunting at Silver Falls (Brett Donowho, 2013).

I hadn't trolled the bottom of my Netflix queue in a while, so I resorted it then took a look at the titles in the bottom five. The only one that struck my fancy that particular day was A Haunting at Silver Falls, so I settled in to watch, hoping against hope that this would be one of those rare birds where the public was entirely wrong and this was an overlooked gem. It's not-there's a little too much "you really expected me to suspend that much disbelief?" in the final third of this debut script-but it's better than I expected given its position at the low end of that particular totem pole.

Plot: Jordan (The Bling Ring's Alix Elizabeth Gitter) is a newly-orphaned teen who's been packed off to live with her aunt and uncle, Kevin (X2's Steve Bacic) and Anne (My Best Friend's Wife's Tara Westwood) Sanders. Not long after she arrives at the new homestead, she starts seeing things-things that turn out (this isn't a spoiler given the cover art) to be the ghosts of a pair of local twins (Gamer's Jade and Nikita Ramsey) whose father is about to be executed for their murder. But why are they haunting Jordan, specifically? And, perhaps more importantly, are they going to get in the way of a possible romance with local nerd Larry (Mansion of Blood's James Cavlo in his feature debut)?

Donowho (5 Souls) and a trio of writers all turning in their first script do a competent job. It's not great, and it's certainly not subtle, but it's watchable enough to spend a quick hour and a half with. The Big Reveal is bats enough that you're either going to love it or hate it. I laughed. That doesn't tell you which side I came down on, though, does it? I thought it was a barrel of cheesy fun. ***.