Recent Reviews
DVD Review: The ABANDONED
By Dave Dreher

May 30, 2007, 22:55

Holy Crap!!

I just had the shit scared out of me.  You have any idea how long it has been since I jumped at a movie?  THE ABANDONED managed this feat not once, not twice but about five times.

What a great film.  Original, clever, scary, spooky, smart.  This film has it all.  Originally released last year as a part of the After Dark Horrorfest - Eight Films To Die For it is coming out on DVD a little later then the rest of the batch which appeared back in March.  It has been worth the wait though.

It really is hard to tag THE ABANDONED into any one classification of the genre.  I guess if I had to chose one it would be a haunted house film but it goes so much deeper than that.  Here is the official breakdown from LIONSGATE.  I think they wrap it up best:

The audience favorite at the 2006 After Dark Horrorfest, The Abandoned comes to DVD this June following the March 27th DVD release of the seven other Horrorfest films – Unrest, Penny Dreadful, The Gravedancers, The Hamiltons, Reincarnation, Dark Ride and Wicked Little Things.  An American woman searching for her birth parents learns she has inherited a house deep within the woods in a remote area of Russia. It is the house where she was born, and it was abandoned and uninhabited for 40 years, standing in total disrepair and neglect.  When she arrives at the house, she meets a mysterious man claiming to be her twin brother and together they find the house holds dangerous secrets to a past they don’t even remember.  Soon they are forced to relive a series of horrifying events and shocking murders that occurred just after they were born and in the place where they were supposed to die.

DVD SPECIAL FEATURES
“The Making of The Abandoned” featurette

CAST                    
Anastasia Hille         The Hole, New Year’s Day, HBO’s RKO 281
Karel Roden             Hellboy, The Bourne Supremacy, Running Scared, 15 Minutes
Valentin Ganev         TV’s Hannibal, In Hell, Dark Descent, The Grey Zone, TV’s Spartacus

The photography and imagery in this film are breathtaking. This is horror clicking on all cylinders.  A wonderful thing to behold.

This is one you will not want to abandon at the video store, run and pick this one up.  It really is that good.

June 19th is the date to circle on the calendar.

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