Cheap Haunted (DVD) (Lewis Gilbert (II)) Price

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Customer Reviews of Haunted

Attempts to mask clichéd story with fashionable excess.
Add Lewis Gilbert's overlooked (and with good reason) "Haunted" to the steadily growing list of cliché-riddled horror movies that form the nadir of Hollywood's throw-away movies. Featuring a beautiful yet strangely meek set design, a particularly well-known cast, eerily familiar scoring, and a plot that is little more than a recycle bin of overused twists, and you come up with a movie that tries to cover up its inept storytelling with fashionable excess.

The movie begins promising enough, when David Ash (Aidan Quinn), an English college professor, receives a letter from one Ms. Webb (Anna Massey), known as Nanny Tess to the children who live in the house she believes to be haunted by evil spirits. Ash, who lost his twin sister at a young age, has typically built an emotional block against all things supernatural as a way of not dealing with his guilt. His capacity for scrutiny forces him back to his hometown of Sussex to quell Nanny Tess's fears about the ghosts she claims are haunting her home.

But, of course, he soon is party to strange occurrences once within the house: there are scratching noises on his door in the night, voices can be heard throughout the house without a body to claim them, and other sorts of delusional phenomena that he passes off as mere child's play. Of course, the so-called children are adults: there's jokester Simon (Alex Lowe), who delights in playing pranks, tight-lipped, serious Robert (Anthony Andrews), who finds it his place to rule over his sister, Christina (Kate Beckinsdale), who instantly takes a liking to David.

After some more of the usual bump-in-the-night trickery and games of the mind, the story begins to fall into even more familiar territory, losing what little suspense it had going for it and settling for a plot that grows ludicrous and bombastically bad. A tepid love interest with Christina leads to tension between he and Robert, who also seems to have a more-than-brotherly relationship with his sister; talk about family dysfunction. And of course, David will see his long-gone sister romping around the house and the grounds, leading him to each piece of the puzzle surrounding the apparitions of the house.

These and many other routine plot twists and storylines abound without hesitation through the film's entire. I enjoyed the beginning of the relationship between David and Christina, played nicely by Quinn and Beckinsdale, who share a warm chemistry. But the script is a waste of their talent, keeping Quinn's character in a glassy-eyed haze much of the time, while Beckinsdale provides various T&A shots that are distasteful and unappealing despite her attractiveness.

The mere fact that this movie had some good potential, as evident in its well-developed beginning, also furthered my fatigue throughout the final act; perhaps I expected too much. And why not? If a movie such as this can afford the talents of Beckinsdale and Quinn and waste them both, it could at least make an effort to look like a first-class movie. Here, the sets are nice to look at, but lack the opulence needed to truly dazzle an audience, such as that of Robert Wise's "The Haunting." The musical score is reflective of dozens of scores from similar films, playing like something out of an "Unsolved Mysteries" rerun, which prevents it from evoking any believable tone or energy.

Director Lewis Gilbert seems to have made an attempt to create a movie that is marginally pleasing, but "Haunted" is little more than a waste of time better spent looking for a better movie. His "surprise" ending may not be easily spotted until its arrival, but the satisfaction it provides (or lack thereof) is something entirely different. This is a very unremarkable horror film, one that attempts to put a spin of elegance on a standard, run-of-the-mill plot that can't seem to find a suitable hiding spot these days.

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A startlingly fresh and spooky haunted house story
This movie is first of all a great haunted house story. If you don't think you like haunted house stories try this one. It's different and clever and eerie. It's also beautifully filmed and acted. Aidan Quinn does a fine job as David Ash, the skeptical investigator of things that go bump in the night who is still troubled by the death of his twin sister years before. Kate Beckinsale steals the show as Christina Mariel the "audaciously charming" girl whose home Ash comes to investigate. Their love story is well done. (When will Kate Beckinsale get the kind of notice she deserves? The lady continues to do superb work in every kind of role.) When you pop this into your VCR (please relaese this on DVD soon!) you're in for a real treat. You won't be safe from goosebumps until the final credits. . . and maybe not even then! See this film!

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A bit long, but intriquing!
I really enjoyed this movie. It was an interesting ghost story with a few unforseen twists. Quinn plays a professor who likes to debunk supernatural phenomena as all just 'smoke and mirrors'. He's asked to come visit a stately manor house and check out three siblings'old housekeeper-nanny's complaint that the house is haunted. At first it looks like the nanny's imagining things, but after a day or two, Quinn begins to wonder if maybe the old woman isn't on to something evil. He begins to doubt his own thoughts regarding the supernatural. And worse- if there are evil ghosts at the old house, what do they want with him? There is some subtle clever dialogue in this movie that slipped right by some Imaginative Cinema Society friends of mine-and who were delighted when I pointed them out. See if you can catch them, too!

My only complaint is that it could've been tightened up a little, and come in with a shorter running time.