A Haunting in Salem

Basically what you have in A HAUNTING IN SALEM is one very boring movie, the plot consist of a new sheriff moving into a new house with his family located in the little town Salem, where strange things start to happen and soon the sheriff realizes their new home is haunted by vengeful spirit.

If I give more of a synopsis I would spoil the film but this thing is so unoriginal and predictable its not even funny and what's worse, the pacing is so slow I thought the pause button on my DVD player was stuck, the acting however was painfully bad, the guy in the lead role was totally missed cast, even though I have seen a few ugly guys with hot wives and great looking kids so its not unusual but this guy just didn't look right for the part and you can tell he's not very comfortable in the lead role and the rest of the cast are just annoying, plainly put.

Of course this film is directed by Shane Van Dyke who also did TITANIC 2 and this is only what I heard, this guy doesn't give a crap about the casting or the acting, he just slams a film together and isn't too concerned with how it turns out, which could be true since the absolute worst films from Asylum are directed by him and they also include PARANORMAL ENTITY(a rip off of PARANORMAL ACTIVITY and an early 80's horror film called THE ENTITY) and a western called 6 GUNS if that's the correct title.

All in all, I recommend you pass on this one it'll just put you to sleep or annoy the hell out of you.

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.

And he moved into a haunted house!!! And apparently the House wants to kill him and his family as it has done for generations. Really somewhat of a snoozefest was what this was. I would not recommend. 3/10

I really honestly don't know what to say. Do I start with the special effects? Or do I go on with the whole written story. Both were terrible, as well as choosing the sheriff who completely resembles DOBY from Harry Potter. I found this to be more of a comedy than horror! I am not saying looks are everything but I believe in casting people that are somewhat attractive on screen, sorry to say DOBY was not. I will say the previews were great, which of course got me to watch. Good editing on that part. I can say that the house was beautiful. The only other problem i have is that the movie cover on this site resembles nothing about what this movie is really like. I hope to see a better horror next time.

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