As an aficionado of bad cinema, I have seen quite a few low budget horror films in my day. From made-for-TV monster movies to Zombie Cop (only ever found on VHS distributed by an unknown company), I have seen them all. I thought I had seen the worst of them. That is, until I managed to see Paranormal Haunting.
At no point in the movie does anything make sense. Characters are introduced only by name without any hint of what their role is in the movie or their motivation for being at the inn might possibly be. People come and go from the film seemingly at random, and any exposition that occurs may as well have come from any other random title pulled off a video store shelf...
The lighting is horrible, and the film's "dark and gritty" post processing makes it almost impossible to watch. Objects in the foreground are completely overexposed while objects in the background fade into a murky pool of video blackness.
Sound issues plague the production as a whole, and often times dialogue (as bad as it is) is made worse by the fact that only one of the two people speaking can be heard clearly.
The music is the only place where Curse of the Blue Moon Inn seems even vaguely passable. The soundtrack includes quite a few songs by some Irish folk/punk band, which work. However, the movie doesn't seem to know when to employ them properly. Scenes which appear to be going for a somber tone will use a jaunty Irish jig in the background, which just confuses the scene further. The score seems to be equally confused throughout, many times cramming string hits and "oooooOOoooh somethings gonna GETCHA!" moments at random and without thought.
As a whole, I have to say this movie is possibly one of the worst in existence, and should be shown at most every film school as a cautionary measure. Please kids, don't make films like this. For all of our sakes.
