The Abandoned (2006)

Director: Nacho Cerdà

Writer: Karim Hussain, Nacho Cerdà, Richard Stanley

Tagline: Death never runs out of time.

Actors: Anastasia Hille, Karel Roden, Valentin Ganev, Paraskeva Djukelova, Carlos Reig-Plaza, Monica Baunova, Marta Yaneva

Runtime: 1h 34m

Category: Ghost, Horrorfest, Thriller

Synopsis: Marie has traveled from the States to Russia in search of information pertaining to her birth parents. She meets with a man named Andrei Misharin who tells her that the family farm is now in her possession. She travels out to the island farm and ends up inside the family house. While investigating the crude remains, she sees someone walking around. When she goes to confront the intruder, she realizes that the person is…her! She storms out of the house and falls into the river. Waking up some time later, she realizes she is not alone. The man in the room with her introduces himself as Nicolai…her brother. Together they set out to discover just what happened to their parents and why they are being stalked by dead doubles of themselves. What they find is a family nightmare that began back in’66, and there are plans to end it…tonight.

Review: I have been waiting for this movie to come to video for some time now. Being labeled the favorite of the After Dark Horrorfest convention, obviously I was intrigued. I knew nothing about it; story or otherwise, so I ended up going into it blind…with high ambitions. Needless to say, I was not disappointed. It did deliver exactly what I had expected. I just wish it would have started a little faster.

The story was wonderful. I thought it was compelling and very intense. It is not necessarily a new concept but I thought it was a nice change from the hum-drum ghost movies I’ve seen lately. This movie carried an ambience of dread and death throughout almost the whole movie. The only thing that bothered me was the fact that it took so long to get going. After about thirty minutes I thought to myself “I hope the next hour is better than these last thirty minutes.” It was. The story picked up almost immediately after thinking that and didn’t really slow down much.

The acting was not too bad. I recognized only one person in the movie and the character I new him as wasn’t that great. It was Karel Roden as Rasputin from Hellboy (2004). His character didn’t have a whole lot of depth so I don’t think he had much room to work with. But here he was able to flex a bit and show a dramatic side. I was impressed overall but not to the point of warranting a Best Actor/Actress award or anything like that. All they really had to do was act scared…that’s not all that hard with a story like that.

The effects were really cool. I loved the make-up on the double-gangers, as Nicolai called them. Those characters were creepy as hell! Slowly stalking you with those bleach-white eyes and pale complexion; enough no make your spin tingle. But that doesn’t compare to the scene where the house turns itself back to 1966. That whole scene was cool as hell, with all of the broken dishes and floorboards fusing back together and flying up to their rightful place. Damn! Very nicely done.

Rating: 22. I liked the movie but I would have liked a bit more info on the family. I think a little explanation about why the father tried to kill his family would have been nice. I mean, the story was good and all, but I don’t understand why the father tried to kill everyone. Was he sick? Was he possessed? What? It doesn’t make sense. That’s the only thing that really bothered me with this movie. If your gonna have a story about a father who tried to kill his family, didn’t succeed, then tries again forty years later, that’s fine; but his reasoning needs to be explained…even if it’s just a pin-point piece of information...hint at something at least. (22of25).