Haunted (Full Screen)
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Movie Reviews of Haunted (Full Screen)
Movie Review: Great Story
Summary: 4 Stars
The acting is excellent, the movie is filled of unexpected surprises and twist and turns. I would give it 5 stars if there were more high tech illustrations. But it is highly recommended and worth your money.Movie Review: An entertaining film.....the bottom line.
Summary: 4 Stars
This film is entertaining, which is the bottom line in any form of entertainment. The film isn't perfect, but you'll enjoy watching it. It's good entertainment. Recommended.Movie Review: Excellent haunting story
Summary: 4 Stars
Really a great plot here with a surprise twist. Good movie for my fellow horror lovers.Movie Review: Interesting.
Summary: 3 Stars
Haunted (Lewis Gilbert, 1995)
I'm a sucker for a good James Herbert adaptation. They are few and far between, especially given that Herbert is, in his native England, the rough equivalent of Stephen King on this side of the pond. He's written any number of spine-chilling novels, and every one I've ever read, including this one, have been fantastic. And yet only four of Herbert's novels have been adapted--The Survivor in 1981, The Rats (as Deadly Eyes) in 1982, and then both Fluke and Haunted in 1995. Please, someone, adapt a few more.
Haunted is the story of David Ash (Aidan Quinn), a professor and skeptic in Britain who is invited out to the supposedly-haunted Edbrook House to chronicle the supposedly paranormal activity there. While he's not too sure about the ghosts, he's certainly bewitched by young Christina Marielle (Kate Beckinsale), who lives there with her brothers Robert (Anthony Andrews, recently of Last Night) and Simon (The Discovery of Heaven's Alex Lowe). The three of them, very close, are presided over by their nanny (Affinity's Anna Massey), and are visited regularly by a local doctor (Sir John Gielgud), but are otherwise pretty much cut off from society. While David is initially amused by the somewhat archaic nature of life at Edbrook, he does eventually start to realize that there are some pretty weird things happening there that have nothing at all to do with isolation.
I'm not a huge fan of either Quinn or Gilbert, but I'm willing to put up with almost anything for a Herbert adaptation. While Gilbert does go a little over the top with the special effects in a scene or two, Quinn pulls off what may be the role of his career here. He's skeptical, but faced with something he doesn't understand. He's trying to be tough as nails, faced with trying to keep his faith to a girlfriend at home while being tempted with one of the most beautiful women he's ever seen, one who's obviously interested in him. I've always thought of Quinn as one of those flat-affect actors who can't play anything but himself, but he brings a low-key current to this role that's just as electric as the current running through the house that may or may not be haunted. Beckinsale looks just as good in lacy frills as she does in skintight leather, and fans of her beauty will be gratified with the amount of time she also spends out of those lacy frills. Andrews and Lowe do a sufficient job of playing the good cop/bad cop routine, and Massey is just awesome, as she usually is. (Sir John's performance goes unremarked not because it's in any way pale, because he's Sir John Gielgud. Can you imagine him giving a bad performance?)
All this said, Haunted doesn't hold a candle to The Survivor; Gilbert and screenwriter Timothy Prager seem far more interested in the romance aspect of the screenplay most of the time, rather than the supernatural aspects, and as a result the movie plays out more like a costume drama than it does a ghost story. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but when you're seeing a James Herbert adaptation, you expect the ghosts to come fast and thick (as well as the deviance, which is tastefully understated here; that could be a good thing or a bad thing, depending on your point of view). Still, not bad. Look at it as a romance with supernatural elements instead of a horror flick, and you'll have a good time with it. ***
Movie Review: Haunted - Very Predictable, but enjoyable.
Summary: 3 Stars
I guess these movies with the twist on them is becoming old news, because I guessed from only a few minutes into the plot what the outcome was going to be, and I guessed it right. And my suspicions grew stronger as the movie unveiled a few more clues to it's final outcome.
However, even tho I predicated what was going to happen in the end, there was a few twist and turns that I could not work out, and kept watching to find out where it was going, and that was enough to keep me interested from start to end of this story of a writer who is invited to a house to meet an elderly woman who was the nanny of of the house's 3 children. (The people who owned the house, not the house itself)
She claims she has been seeing ghosts and the house is haunted. Yet the 2 brothers and daughter she has helped to raise all there lives think she is just crazy.
So this man who has written many ghost stories based on the facts, who has never really encountered a ghost and claims they are non existent, stays with them in the house for a couple of days, to investigate and discovers there are in fact strange things happening in this house.
He suspects there may be someone behind it at first, but discovers much more then he ever expected to by the end of this film.
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As I said, I worked out very early in the film the outcome result of who certain characters and there story really where, but there are a lot of other things I did not predict, and it keeps you guessing to the end if your thoughts are right, or if it's something else.
If you care, I thought it was going to turn out that 2 of the characters where married and lying about there status etc.. but I guessed that one wrong. So if your someone who easily works out outcomes before they happen like I sometimes do, then I'd urge you to check this one out as it can confuse and trick you into one belief throwing you off the track your think it is going to in some aspects of the plot.
On the scare factor, I don't think it's on the creepy or spooky side of film making at all. It's more of a mystery film surrounding the supernatural then anything else really, don't expect blood and gore and terrifying scares from the walking dead, it's a clean mystery that slowly unravels as it proceeds with interesting twists and tales, yet very predicable for some like me, but even with that said, I still think it was a very enjoyable movie.
If you see it for rental, check it out, it won't kill you.