Good movie but grossly overrated

It’s an especially fun movie from a director and cast who are clearly having a good time allowing themselves to let loose.

Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

Watching it is like watching the spectacle of a class clown at their best: you laugh at their jokes, instigate their defiance, and "ooooh" when they get in trouble.

The film opens with kind of a creepy, promising narrative given by the actress (Jackie Weaver) who played the daughter in All in the Family whose haggard appearance is perhaps the most frightening aspect of the movie. Here's how it pans out: main 18-year-old dude goes for a good old fashioned stroll through the snowy woods and finds a girl in the freezing cold with no jacket crying about something she won't reveal. Next night, she ends up in the bed of our main guy—she sneaks on in there, by the way, and he wakes up to find her there, and is just like yeah, sure, no problem, and promises to protect her. Two jump scares and a cheap CGI character aren't enough to hold this movie up, and by the time you get to the end, nobody's motivations make any sense, living or dead, and are inconsistent to say the least. STOP now if you want to be surprised, because here comes the spoiler, and while there are several plot holes and unanswered questions, this is the one that irks me: if that girl from the woods is the daughter of Jackie Weaver's now-dead husband and his mistress, the fact that the girl says her mother died obviously holds up. The fact that she has a drunk dad who beats her...that's clearly not her birth dad, right, because the ghost comes for the birth dad too, in the movie's cold open? And we don't get to see the dad's face when the kid comes to check on the girl for a reason, as it's very obviously blurred, making you think that it will somehow become relevant. It doesn't. Did someone decide "meh, that's good enough" when they went back and realized they had to cover their tracks when it came to one of the most important plot elements of the film—which, seriously, leads to nothing—the fact that her dad beats her? Also, um, for what reason does this ghost want to kill the 'biological' dad in the beginning? Weren't they in love? What did he do wrong? I'm gonna give her the benefit of the doubt and guess that it's because he sat there like an idiot watching his wife about to slit this woman's throat without making a move to stop her.Then again, I sat there like an idiot watching all 87 minutes of this nonsense, so I guess that makes us even. Oh, and the ghost lets one person live: THE WOMAN WHO KILLED HER. REALLY? YOU'RE KILLING INNOCENT CHILDREN BUT SHE'S GOOD TO GO? Also, way to go framing your daughter for murder and getting her sent to jail, ghost lady! You are totally crushing it when it comes to getting that vengeance of yours on everyone except the one person you should be concerned with.IFC Midnight is really starting to drop the ball.

If you are looking for a spooky movie then "Haunt" is not really the best of choices. It has a mediocre storyline and some fairly cheap scare tricks going on.A family has moved into a new house where mysterious things are going one. And when the teenagers have a séance they get in touch with something inside the house.It is a mediocre storyline that initially did seem okay, but it just lacked proper scary atmosphere and spooky moments. And whenever they did attempt to scare the audience by showing a haunt or apparition, they usually made use of a lousy out of focus effect with the camera. I guess that it is an easy way to glance past perhaps a lack of great effects or make-up?The acting in "Haunt" was okay, although the cast were extremely limited by the script and the storyline."Haunt" did have potential to be a good horror movie, but director Mac Carter couldn't bring the ship safely into harbor, so to speak.All in all, an average movie experience, but a weak horror experience. As such, "Haunt" fails to haunt the audience and scores a mere five out of ten stars from me.

The Asher family move into a new house, but they are unaware of the full events and details of what went on previously in the house - an event labelled as the Morello Curse - in which the father and three children were murdered by an unknown force. Evan Asher starts to experience different paranormal activity in the house but merely brushes it off. He befriends a young neighbour, Sam, who knew the previous family, and after exploring a small room attached to Evan's bedroom, they find a box that is used to make contact with the dead. They make contact with the ghosts of the murdered children, but unfortunately they are not alone as an evil force starts making it's intentions known and it's not long before Evan and Sam are fighting for their lives.From reading about the film and viewing the trailer, Haunt looks to be a good, very creepy supernatural horror. However, after watching the full movie you find out that it's definitely not as good as the trailer makes it out to be. Don't get me wrong - it's not a horrendous movie but it could have been so much better as it definitely had the ingredients to make it a good film.The main thing where it falls down for me is that there are too many unanswered questions and plot holes. I guess the way certain incidents are done they are open to interpretation, but you don't get any real sense of closure, for want of a better word. It is a film you do have to pay attention to, but you still have to do some searching to try and find the answers to the questions that the film poses.The acting is pretty decent and there are a few nice creepy moments, but other than that Haunt is really just another run-of-the-mill haunted house movie.Not bad but definitely not that good either.

An introverted teen (Harrison Gilbertson) connects with his new neighbor (Liana Liberato), and together the couple begins to explore the haunted house that his family has unknowingly just purchased.There are some things worth liking about this film. The cinematographer is excellent, first of all, and the snow shots look great. Casting Liana Liberato was a wise move, as she has "the look" that could really take her places in the coming years. And the inclusion of the supernatural radio (for lack of a better term) was cool.What was not appreciated was the writer's apparent influence from "American Horror Story". Maybe this is all coincidental, but the house full of ghosts, the strange neighbor, it all seemed very familiar. And not really in a good way. Other reviews have called the film unoriginal, and they are right. While few horror films are, this one is even more derivative than others.Perhaps most strange of all was the poor advertising from IFC. The cover art is not terribly persuasive, and they make no mention of Jacki Weaver or Ione Skye. Weaver gets a mention on the back, but these are two names that should be put prominently on the cover. Why would you not play up having a two-time Oscar nominee in your film?