A Haunting in Salem

Sheriff Wayne Downs(Bill Oberst Jr.) wears his pants pretty high,unfortunately though,not high enough to hide his dreadful acting.He has potential as a villain but his casting as a leading man in this story was idiotic especially as his wife(Courtney Abbiati)was unbelievably hot. Although she was some welcome eye candy,Abbiati was more wooden than the surrounding structure and provided some strange inappropriate smiles at the wrong times as though she was reading the words but failing to put them into the context of the film. To say the shocks were hackneyed would be putting it mildly,(how many times can an image in a mirror reflection be used?)the directing was unimaginative and seemed to be read from a DIY horror manual. Ironically the star of the show was the inanimate object,the house,although the two teenagers(Jenna Stone and Nicholas Harsin)did their best,Stone was pretty good in fact. The most damning indictment of this film is the fact that the house and the grounds were the most fertile spawning ground for horror imaginable. Every sprawling beam and arched design screamed of southern Gothic and hidden secrets. This proves to be of detriment to the film as the lightweight acting seems to melt into the glorious background creating an oddly vacuous feeling. More atmosphere in space.

Based on the image on the DVD cover, I was looking forward to this movie, because it really did look interesting on the cover. Just goes to prove, don't just a movie by it's cover, eh? And also that it were to take place in legendary Salem.

While watching it, it because painstakingly clear that this movie was not really all that great. The story was good enough, though there really wasn't anything new to be seen here. Nothing to revolutionize the horror genre. So don't expect to be surprised and be sitting in awe.

The one thing that this movie had going on for it, was the atmosphere. The house itself was really nicely done, lots of really great details here, and they had managed to carve out a really greet feel to the house and its surrounding. Old houses are genuinely creepy.

As for the cast, well I didn't recognize a single one here. And in itself that was good enough, because I enjoy watching a movie with new faces in it. However, the bad thing was that there were no really overly convincing performances here. It was as it almost all people were in this movie half-heartedly. The most memorable, though, were the two teenagers; Jenna Stone and Nicholas Harsin.

My low rating of this movie is because it just wasn't scary. The movie trotted on at a really slow pace, despite things happening, what happened wasn't scary. It was a dread to look at sometimes, because I wished more scary stuff would happen. There was only a single time in the entire movie that I got spooked, and without saying too much, then it was the scene where the sheriff was laying down on the bed to go to sleep.

And one thing did puzzle me. What was the thing with the sheriffs and having to douse everything in gasoline to torch it all down when they found their families dead? I am pretty sure that kind of behavior is not what people do, much less trained police men, in such situations. That was just downright ridiculous.

If you like horror movies, then "A Haunting in Salem" is not really a great choice, because you will be sorely disappointed.

Arriving in a small town, a sheriff and his family find the new house they've moved into is the home to a ravenous ghost that was initially burned alive as a witch in the town's past and tries to get them out of the creature's wrath before succumbing to its rampage.

This here wasn't that bad of an effort. One of the better features here comes from the film taking place in the typically creepy and chilling house which manages to utilize a great mixture of both the classic and more modern elements. The main house, full of the creaking wooden hallways and panels, sharp corners and the general air of history seeping through the walls really looks like the appropriate old- school, historically chilling house that maintains a suitable setting for the modern appliances that are at play here. Those more modern influences, from their ability to interact with the teens over the computer messenger or appearing to manipulate their visions, really begins to drive him insane as these tactics come off really well. These deliver some great hauntings as the scene of them pulling the hair from the shower drain with a tooth embedded in it, the gagging daughter hallucination or the different flash visions that keep occurring around the house showing them strung u in a hanging-style scenario which springs up quite often here to torment him. These scenes here provide the great framework for the actions leading up to the big finale in the actions of the possessed over the rest of the family which gives this one some great scenes of her utilizing the supernatural antics to attack and torment the others by popping up around them or launching attacks that are really much more impressive than expected to generate some nice bloody deaths immersed into the fine action. These here are what really works, though there's a few flaws to be found here. The biggest issue to be found is the really weak and half-hearted storyline that manages to be quite a cliché as well as goes for the cop-out explanation of everything which makes for a wholly simplistic affair. What should've been a thrilling exploration of the history of the house and the things going bump inside is instead glossed over in such a quick fashion that it really loses a lot of potential here by simply spelling everything out in one quick scene gives this one quite a lame buildup. It really could've given this one a greater sense of fear and suspense had this one gone for a more realistic route that allowed for the film to pace itself a little more. Even more to the point is the way this one goes for the overly familiar route of the ghostly haunting being presented here, from the troubled figure driven insane by what's going on to the point of madness against the disbelief of his family, the townsfolk who know it all and the ghosts coming back to seek revenge on such wrong-doers which gets targeted by their rampage all being quite familiar elements that are at play here, and all told the story here is quite disappointing. As well, the low-budget look here is another factor to hold this one back, from the cramped-in feeling of the house and the early attack scenes to the CGI and the effects in general this one tends to have the low-budget feel that's hard to get over. These here are the film's flaws.

Rated R: Language and Violence.

In regard to Shane Van Dyke's other Asylum projects, A Haunting in Salem is not as wretched as Titanic II(his best is 6 Guns, which still was mediocre at best). A Haunting in Salem is still very poor however, and shows that generally Van Dyke is far from a good director. His direction has a very slapping things together sort of quality and with no subtlety or skill, in short amateurish. But there are other things outside of Van Dyke's directing that makes A Haunting in Salem as bad as it is. It does look as though it was made in a rush, with slapdash special effects and make-up that is even less convincing than badly done children's face paintings. The dialogue doesn't have sense of life, flow or sense, and the actors certainly seemed to think so because apart from Jenna Stone(the only halfway decent thing about the entire movie) they give incredibly half-hearted performances. Bill Oberst Jnr doesn't deserve the unfair personal comments he's gotten but as an actor here he shows little charisma or passion. The story was especially bad here, that it's slow-moving wouldn't have been a problem if the scares were interesting and the storytelling compelling enough. But because the scares are so predictable and the story so lacking in tension, horror, suspense, thrills or fun the pacing just felt interminably dull, so it was difficult to maintain interest. All in all, a real bore and a poorly done movie all round excepting Stone. 1/10 Bethany Cox

A haunting in Salem is anything but original. Full of your standard horror tropes and clichés you'll have seen every bit of it before but done a whole hell of a lot better.

Telling the story of a Sheriff and his family moving into a house with a dark past connected to witches (It is Salem after all) You'll see every scene coming a mile off and despite the budget very little of it even looks remotely good.

The Good:

Courtney Abbiati

The Bad:

Clichéd everything

Things I learnt from this movie:

A throw from a 3 story window will merely wind you