Review of The Abandoned (2006) by Luke B — 25 Aug 2007

The film begins with some beautiful cinematogrophy. Lovingly composed and well lit shots of a beautiful Russian countryside. The cinematography is the only thing that stays consistent in this film. It lends itself to the dark nature and spooky goings on.

Another noticeable plus is the sound, from the moment where a child's scream tranistions seamlessly into the roar of a plane I knew my ears would be treated as well as my eyes. These two things aside not much else gels together.

The plot is moderately interesting but falters in the middle as it fails to engage, before picking itself up for a semi-interesting finale. The actors do okay with their parts but their characters are just hollow shells who take their frustrations out on each other.

Result of this is two quite annoying leads for the most part. Brother and Sister protagonists also share two very simple roles, the sister constantly asks questions and the brother (for some reason, probably pacing) instantly knows the answers.

When they aren't together the sister acts like a complete horror cliche idiot. Despite having encountered the identical looking ghosts of herself and her brother she sees the back of whom she presumes to be her brother.

She calls out his name but gets no answer as he silently slips into a room. What does our heroine do? She follows him of course. A few nice ideas are incorporated in the film, such as the stars being haunted by themselves and any injury they inflict on their own ghost harms them, as well as a flashback scene where a torch surveys a room and wherever the light shines it shows how the room was 40 years ago, as well as what was going on.

This scene offers one of the only genuine frights. It's nice to see a horror with an older cast and for it not to be slapped around by fast edits. It looks good, it sounds good and there is certainly some talent shining through.

A more compact, fleshed out script could have served this film better.