Too much of everything

Go in cold, and you're likely to emerge with your blood boiling. This has to be seen to be believed.

Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

The acting in this movie is really good.

Arriving in Russia to sort through her ancestral home, a woman finds that the ghostly doppelgangers of her and her brother are guarding a terrifying secret within the house and they must solve it together before it can come to pass and allow them to leave.This here was quite the enjoyable if flawed effort. One of the main positives here is the rather fun and chilling atmosphere of the house since this one takes place almost exclusively at the location which really gives this a really eerie tone for the most part. The set-up with the backstory here makes for a rather steady storyline that gets them to the house and allows them to go exploring around the abandoned, disused place which is where this one really gets to plenty to like with the overall atmosphere. There's the first walk-through of the house when they see that state of the house and the eerie silence as they oversee the different momentos left in a state of dust-covered objects and pictures which lets them into the encounters found later in the house where they finally find the continuous series of ghostly encounters in that kind of environment. The scenes of the two up in their old cribs where the psychedelically-enhanced visuals that accompany the ghosts are incredibly creepy, the scenes of them wandering around the house confronting the ghosts in various rooms throughout the house as they battle their selves in the big battles in the kitchen and the dining room provides this one with some utter creepy encounters. The frantic attacks in the final half where they chase her through the woods away from the home while replaying the events of the separation incident for the brother where he sees what happened to them in order to become separated and how he became a ghost gives this one some more great fun as there's some rather chilling action with the voices getting to her and the frantic action of being around the infants is where it scores as a wild, frantic finish. Alongside the chilling ghosts, sporadic but bloody gore and fine nudity these here give this one quite a lot to like with only a few minor flaws. The main flaw here for this one is the fact that it makes absolutely no sense at all as this one simply piles on plenty of confusion and utter incomprehension about anything that' going on in here, as not only is there nothing here about what the ghostly doppelgangers are or where they came but there's nothing here about the purpose of the father reappearing. All we get are his cruel behavior towards their mother but nothing about why he's after them or even anything about the ghostly versions of themselves which just makes the whole affair so utterly confusing as nothing is ever explained. As well, there's also the issue to contend with in that the ghosts aren't really that dangerous as there's never a true sense they plan to go after them intending to hurt them and their confusing nature also extends to their behavior as they just shamble along without going for those attack and it gives them a somewhat weakened feeling. Still, this one has enough enjoyable elements to work incredibly well.Rated R: Graphic Violence, Graphic Language, Full Nudity and intense scenes of child abuse.

The opening credits written in a hokey font that uses the Russian letter "Я" as an "R" was indicative of the mediocre production values that would become apparent. Also, the entire premise of the movie-that the main character needs to travel to Russia and attend to the farm she inherited shows an startling ignorance of modern Russian history. No one inherits real property in Russia! All land and houses were owned by the state during Communism, and after the fall of Communism, property was not given to anyone. (Yes, there are some cases of property being privatized now, but not inherited.) Also, anyone who is familiar with Russia will be struck by the absence of birch trees in the forest scenes. But these are minor flaws, and could be overlooked, except for the rest of the movie.The story starts out well enough with a Russian-born woman traveling from the US to Russia to look into her "property", but more, to look into her origins. The story grows darker, and the suspense is really well done, with very well-crafted frightening scenes. But, about a third of the way into the movie, the strange becomes outlandish, and the outlandish becomes idiotic. This could have been a great thriller, but it descends into an absurd horror movie. There are scenes that are truly unwatchable and I wonder about the humanity of the person who conceived them. Scary, yes, well-acted, yes, intelligent, no. It's as subtle as a sledge-hammer.

A film producer who was adopted as a baby and sent to America, returns to her native Russia and the family farm, where she was born. Strange things begin to happen including the disappearance of her guide, the manifestation of ghosts, an apparition of herself, and the appearance of another man who may have an explanation, or even a connection......This film had a lot of potential, showing the flip side of someone's life, if they hadn't had something happen to them at the last second.You know those movies where someone is going to get shot, and at the last minute they are saved by someone else? This is what would happen if that someone else wasn't there.It sounds very promising, and in the hands of an able director, the story would have been well told, but instead,me get this borefest that has a decent twist to it, but doesn't know how to deal with it.So we are left to the obvious brother and sister walking around the house, walking into zombified versions of each other, and then get treated to a reconstruction of the two as babies, with a little bit of Hannibal thrown in for good measure.And that's the film, the two leads have no chemistry together, and Roden looks like he's been forced at gunpoint to do this.I wouldn't bother, it sounded good, but self heating cans of coffee did too, and look how many people regret having them.

Reading over almost every single one star review on this, it would appear that every single person that ranked it as such cannot follow even a fairly simple plot as this (I see lots of "It makes no sense" and "Nothing is explained" comments.). Really sad to see good gems in the rough like this getting trashed by people that frankly shouldn't be reviewing movies, maybe I'm an elitist, I don't know, but I'm sorry, if you couldn't follow the story of The Abandoned, I really don't know what to say.This movie is kept from being a top tier creepy movie simply by pacing issues, that's probably my main problem with it which drags it's score into the 7 range (might as well be a 10 for the amount of drek horror made since the mid 90's). This movie has impeccable atmosphere, the kind you can cut through with a knife which is oh so important for any great haunted house film. The atmosphere itself was incredibly creepy, the director should have let the audience just stew in that a bit before getting right to the point so to speak within minutes of walking into the house, it really lessens the impact of the imagery and the antagonists in this movie, but doesn't destroy it by any means.What stood out the most to me is that it was a very original idea (as far as i know, I have never seen anything quite like it) and like The Baby's room, I love wildly original takes on my favorite horror genre, the haunted house movie. It's deliciously dark without relying on cheap gore, but if that's what you're looking for, there's some incredibly brutal and disturbing scenes in it. The story and acting and characters are good enough to be very compelling but at the same time, I think a little more character development couldn't have hurt. yet we have people screaming "TOO SLOW TOO BORING" and 1 starring it so this is why character development is sadly all but dead in horror movies.The imagery and photography was fantastic, sound appropriately creepy if severely overdone at times but only a few times.Just see it. Even if it doesn't scare you like it didn't scare me (i can count the movies on one hand that have achieved this, this is the holy grail of horror for me.), it's very creepy and quite unnerving and just an all around enjoyable flick. Definitely gets the thumbs up from me.