PLOT SUMMARY: When Emily, a caretaker, arrives to tend to a dementia patient, she soon learns that the house has some terrible secrets waiting to be revealed.
Reason #48 of why I watch horror movies:
They are short.
When a movie is good, you don’t really want it to end, do you? But with horror movies, the longer they are, the fewer horror elements are incorporated in the stories and replaced by unnecessary drama.
The Haunted is a little more than an hour, which is the only good thing about it. The story meanders, trying to be a story actually. The end is a convoluted mess and doesn’t slide efficiently into the story.
It’s like it was written just to give the story a little twist because somewhere down the line, the writer must have realized that the story is going nowhere.
What is worse, is the camera angles. Was a drunk cameraman allowed to shoot this film? And the makeup inconsistency was just annoying.
One minute the actress has nude lipstick, the other minute she is wearing bright pink while running from the ghosts in the house.
What is the story about?
THE HAUNTED Movie Plot
The movie is about a caretaker being taken to a big house. She has to take care of a man who has dementia.
The other caretakers in the house are apathetic with one of them going as far as to say not to disturb him even if the patient dies during the night.
Emily takes one look at the house and her responsibilities and decides, nope I’m not doing this. She rushes out but the others leave in the car.
What follows is a lot of door opening and slamming shut. Lights don’t work and neither does the small TV.
This is surprising considering what happens later. Don’t they say ghosts interfere with electricity? Or is it that in this case, the ghosts are not good at being ghosts?
Anyway, her charge who is asleep, Arthur, wakes up and pees in the corner of the room.
Emily rolls her eyes and isn’t too pleased taking care of the patient. Reluctantly, she goes to get the cleaning supplies from the closet when the door slams shut.
Emily freaks out, runs out, and then out of the house as well.
Then remembering she’s the caretaker, she goes in. But note that she doesn’t clean the pee from the carpet.
Then she decides to touch things that are not hers. She sees a girl’s photo and decides it must be his daughter and decides to call her.
Using this as an excuse, she snoops around the house. Okay, even if the girl was his daughter and she isn’t present, maybe they both don’t want to be near each other.
But the TV isn’t working and Emily needs to pass her time so she goes all around the house touching everything under the pretext of looking for his daughter’s number.
She just about finds a phone book when a shelf drops, blocking her way. She yelps but doesn’t try to push it back in place.
Not her house. Not her problem if things get knocked over while she’s snooping.
When she comes down, Arthur is freaking out again and asking someone behind Emily what she is doing there.
There is no one.
Emily goes to the other room and opens up the backpack to find tarot cards and an ouija board. She goes upstairs to play near the mirror because you don’t play ouija alone.
She is about to ask who the ghost is that keeps sneaking about the house when she creeps up behind her and takes her place.
The Haunted Ending Explained
Emily freaks out again and runs around the house but keeps seeing the girl from the photo everywhere.
She goes to Arthur when she sees the girl approach him. Her solution? Pluck Arthur from his room and make him sleep on the sofa.
There are more bad camera angles and more of Emily running around the house with a flashlight. She comes upon a basement where there is a toilet and someone in the bed with only the head showing.
She pulls away the quilt to reveal a skeleton.
Emily understands that the ghost is Arthur’s daughter who was mistreated and kept in the basement.
She tries to console her but the ghost surprises her by revealing that it is Emily who is the ghost and who was mistreated by her father. The photos too, are of her and not the ghost.
Emily runs out and is reunited with her mother, then disappears.
Why does Emily see that girl in the photo rather than herself? No idea. Did she see the girl before to have imagined her? Still no idea.
Was the girl an exorcist or a medium? Possibly considering it was her backpack with the tarot cards and ouija board.
Why did Emily not recognize she was brought into her house? Again, none of this makes sense.
There could have been scenes to show Emily found the house familiar, or she was having visions of her own family before the ball dropped to reveal what had happened.
But the storytelling is sparse in this movie. The ending was abrupt but welcoming considering the movie was going nowhere and I was glad it ended.
Oh, and the other caretakers? Ghosts? Aides of the medium?
No mysteries are solved here.
Scare scale:
Dude agreed, just watched it I was like wtf. I'm left with so many questions. Like when did the mom died, I know they mention it but it was so fast. And why was he mistreating his daughter? That explains why she already looked dead with her makeup being almost grey.
ReplyDeleteI must have missed the mentioning of the dead mom because I was wondering why some lady ran out and Emily called her mom. Maybe a photo in her purse of her mom or something to let us know she had a mom. Also, if my ghost looks like I did when I die, I don't want to be a ghost. I'm tired of being ugly.
ReplyDeleteEveryone has a mom lol
DeleteLike they put a shitty, unfinished b/c they already blow all the money. Shelved it through for us all the waste our time. How can you write something that could not find the ending.
ReplyDeleteThought Sofie carried the movie quite well, not easy for mostly a one person show, thought the camera angles were great, not your typical Hollywood multi millions extravaganzas, thought the look and feel of the movie to be Haunting, enjoyed and did not wish for an end, don't believe it's the story that has to be believable, only the actors. Loved it.
ReplyDeleteJ loved it too! I found it atmospheric and chilling, then the end was a good twist although rushed
DeleteThought Sofie carried the movie quite well, for mostly a one dimensional plot, found the camera angles to be quite refreshing, not your typical Hollywood multi millions extravaganzas, gave it a very haunting look and feel, felt as if were there along with Emily, didn't want it to end, don't believe that the storyline is as important, as long as I believe the actor. Loved it.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteI hated it from the beginning to the end!!!
ReplyDeletewtf i mean whats the story in this???
ReplyDeletethe movie neither have a good beginning nor ending.
i mean no one understands what happens in the end, try not to make movies like this
Simple, but I liked it. I found the girl pretty and I could've been watching her snooping around for hours, ha. Not, seriously, I think she did a good acting job in a low budget movie with a simple plot, some flaws, but thankfully no cheap jump scares.
ReplyDeleteHorrible movie makes no sense. Wasted my time.
ReplyDeleteTo understand this movie, you have understand what happens to a soul that is trapped after death. This is clearly what the movie is about. We all have free choice, even after death, so although Sofie has died, she is unaware of her own death. As time has no meaning after death, she stumbles around in a kind of purgatory of her own making. The dark haired girl is the rescue medium who is trying to help her move on, hence the tarot cards and ouija board. When she finally realises and acknowledges the terrible truth of her life and passing, she's ready to move on, and her mother is waiting to take her into the light.
ReplyDelete@Iridescent - Perfectly stated. Just watched this movie and imo it wasn't that bad. I wasn't a fan of the shaky camera angles, but maybe there was a reason for that as well. Maybe to bring a sense of unease or alert us that what we're seeing is off.
DeleteThe other two caretakers did say the mother died some years back, so there's that. I think other viewers may be upset that it requires a bit of imagination and instead of being presented all nice and neat, it does so in a roundabout way. Slightly different approach on the traditional ghost story/haunted house theme. Nothing new, but certainly a slight nod to "The Others."
The ending twist reveal was a bit rushed, but at that point, there wasn't much more to be done. I kinda figured Arthur was a bad person and that something unfortunate happened to his daughter. I just had the wrong "daughter" in mind.
I was also surprised to see a character in a horror movie, try to escape from the house when she was frightened. I also wondered why she never bothered unveiling those "humanlike" figures under those 2 sheets she encountered. Love to have seen what was under there.
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDeleteOk, so for starters, I dunno what the heck Susan Hedstrom is on about in the comment which should be above mine as she is not talking about the movie in question.
ReplyDeleteNow, moving on to the film, it was ok but didn't make sense at all.
If the main character is supposed to be a ghost, why do we see her getting a ride in a car to the house she is supposed to be haunting, shouldn't she already be in the house & who is the driver who doesn't care he has a ghost in his car & talking perfectly normal with her?
Also, how come said ghost is seen holding & using a smartphone?
Don't get it.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteI liked the setting of the house and it did have some creepy parts but the ending was a huge letdown.
ReplyDeleteI figured out the daughter was haunting the house because of her father killing her in some way, but the lead up made no sense at all.
At least in "The Others" the ghost were already in the mansion. In this movie it just threw everything off with Emily being driven there and being talked to like it was her first day on the job.
Then being told who she was by the medium at the end, then meeting up with the ghost of her mother who died ten years earlier.
Now did the medium struggling with her father send him down the stairs killing him after finding Emily's Corpse? How long was the medium at Arthur's house for and who asked for her help? And again her interactions with the Morning caregiver and driver still didn't make sense with Emily's as the newx night caregiver. Because they wouldn't have gone through that with the medium if she were brought there to contact any spirits. And were the form ghost that Emily didn't touch previous victims of Arthur's?
And when I checked the IMDB page there were two characters listed that weren't in the movie. So did we all watch a movie that was re edited for time and left with a lot of storyline cut out of it?
Im not gonna bother reading the rest you already have errors in the article. She saw they forgot the bag. And she ran out to give it to them but they were already driving away, it wasnt her bag. She already snooped around the house before arthur peed on the floor.
ReplyDeleteThis article was either a rip off or was ripped off by another article. There are several sentences that are copy paste on another article idk which is the original. One example is “she played with quija board in front of the mirror because you dont play quija by yourself” or something along those lines.
ReplyDelete