Haunt

I recently rented Haunt (2019) off Amazon Prime for $3.99 after months of feeling ashamed I had not seen it yet. The storyline is around a group of friends looking for a haunted house adventure and they find one. Once the haunted house activities begin they quickly realize everything around them is realer than it appears. This movie is directed by Scott Beck and Bryan Woods, who also collaborated on Impulse, Spread and Nightlife. This movie stars Katie Stevens (Polaroid), Will Britain (Kong: Skull Island), Lauryn Alisa McClain (Superstition) and Andrew Lewis Caldwell (iZombie). The storyline itself is very straightforward but the protagonists are very unique and well presented. The kill scenes are excellent, well executed, quick and sudden without relying on too much CGI. This film actually reminded me of a better version of The Houses October Built 2. Overall this was a great modern slasher flick that is a must see for horror film fans. I'd score it a 8/10.

To be honest I wasn't expecting much from this movie, but I was pleasantly surprised. I am not normally a fan of the torture/slasher genre, more of a supernatural horror fan. But I really enjoyed this movie. Yes there is nothing to much new here, but let's be honest, those truly original stories are few and far between. The acting was great, the set up was good, and the various traps and puzzles were fun. The film doesn't try to explain itself, just a mental scary haunted house. But the suspense is maintained through out, and I particularly liked the ending, which was a change from the usual return of the psycho shock.

Thematically similar to last year's Hell Fest, Haunt deals with similar territory, but it's different enough to not feel like you'd be wasting your time if you'd already seen the other film.

A battered young woman escapes from a Halloween evening with her abusive boyfriend and goes to hang out with her fun loving friends. They pick up some guys and drive around, wondering what to do next. They encounter a quaint haunted house attraction deep in the woods and decide that this should be how they spend their Halloween night. Since this this is a horror film, you can already guess that the performers inside might have more sinister and deadly motives than just supplying a good scare or two.

Haunt is a fairly simplistic movie, but the performances are mostly above average for a film of this sort and it's refreshing to see horror film characters do the right thing on multiple occasions. I can't say it's a tremendous, original take on the slasher genre, but it gets the job done and supplies a few jolts here and there.

The effects work is great and, when the villains' masks come off, it's a pretty horrifying sight. I do wish that, perhaps, there was a bit more backstory about this haunted house and the performers who inhabit it. How long has this been up? Have they done this in other locations? The logistics were hurting my head a bit, but thankfully, the movie moves so quick that you don't have a lot of time to think about such things as you're watching it.

Fun Halloween haunted house film but the story was has recycled over and over again and this version brought nothing new to the table.

Horror low budget films are often so bad. This one is the exception. Don't expect to be the greatest movie of the year and you will have such a great time. I would describe it as a very entertaining and tense horror movie. Funny and easy to watch. Great performances and great direction (especially to build the tension).