The Abandoned: Critic Reviews

The movie sinks so deep into deathly atmosphere that there's no life to it.

Through the murk and gloom of The Abandoned; a mystery emerges: Why didn't this go straight to DVD?

Perhaps the worst offense of The Abandoned, however, is that so little effort is made by the screenwriters to make any 'sense' of it all.

The relatively tame horrors on display here may disappoint fans of the director's gut-spelunking short Aftermath, which made him an underground hero on the abra-cadaver circuit.

Eerie frights here are more a matter of sheer dread-soaked atmosphere.

Slow, moody haunted-house shocker; not for kids.

And at the end of the equation, things just don't add up.

"This horror flick is atmospheric and often frightening, but the lack of a solid narrative creates a lethargic pace."

It is, to put it simply, a totally kick-ass horror movie that should be seen by every self-respecting fear film fan.

All haunted house movies feature labyrinthine corridors and darkened rooms, but few achieve the tangible depth and texture of The Abandoned. After so many inferior generic excursions and aberrations, Cerda's film feels like a homecoming.

The work of a master visualist trying to walk the line between narrative and visual spectacle. The story is there, but it just sits on the side of the visual experience.

A definite fascinating and creepy mystery that leads up to a very surreal finale I enjoyed...

Despite some effective atmosphere at times, this multi-European produced supernatural thriller is a tedious snoozer

A sort of haunted house story, "The Abandoned" has scary atmosphere, decent acting, an interesting setting %u2013 everything but a coherent story line.

...inert and inept...

Cerda quickly lets slip his woeful lack of skill with a curious, "arty" predilection for switching camera focus in the middle of a shot.

At its best, it's an effective shocker with an atmosphere that seeps into your very bones. The problem is it's not always at its best, and when it isn't, it really isn't.

Director Nacho Cerda succeeds in pushing the haunted-house movie into an abstract realm where the past and present fold into each other.

Heralds the arrival of a new talent that every horror fan should keep their eyes on, if they're not covering them with their hands.

As the heroine wanders around her old, rundown childhood home, the movie itself wanders, trying to find its purpose, meaning, and even, it seems, a worthwhile starting point.

This is coming from a guy who really enjoys a "slow burn" ghost story: The Abandoned is a grade-A snoozer.

The last thing a filmmaker named Nacho needs is more cheese.