Haunt (2013)
Some houses are more dead than others.
- First scene nails the scary "haunted house" vibe while also giving ample amounts of feelings to a character we don't even know, and is something we wish to hold up the rest of the runtime.
- Some decent jump scares.
- Effects work well handled, not so overused you start to think it worse.
- Overall atmosphere is wonderfully done.
- Regardless of how well the actors may do, the main two characters feel terrible due to constant flip-flopping of motivation and break-neck pace of relational progression.
- Ghosts hate sex that's implied but never shown (Maybe should be positive. Ghostly abstinence persuasion should get people rather spooked about sex).
- "Possession mode" is a bit overdone with the 'veins.'
- Set up the plot hooks so far before hand that you could only not foresee it by having not watched nothing but the ending (at which case you wouldn't even know it was a hook anyways).
I really enjoyed the haunted house vibe coming from this one, and it really did feel it's best when it was doing mild jump scares and any of the EVP box moments. The plot hook get spoiled well before the end of the movie thanks to it's lead-up presentation so there isn't really any major grooves to set his apart from other more well executed haunted house movies. Could be worth a rental if you look just for a spooky vibe or you've already watched every other haunted house movie in circulation, and it certainly isn't the worst one I've seen - I just don't particularly come away feeling that it's got the advantage over other movies of this type. Still, if nothing else I came away happy thanks to the spooky atmosphere alone - although it would have been nice to see the lead characters have a little better writing done for them than something out of Twilight.