Purely Joyful Movie!

Very interesting film. Was caught on the premise when seeing the trailer but unsure as to what the outcome would be for the showing. As it turns out, it was a very good film.

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

A clunky actioner with a handful of cool moments.

"The Bates Haunting" is a stereotypical Direct-to-DVD feature that you would most likely see at your local RedBox and would probably ask yourself who would actually rent this before you pick up the latest new release.While the story takes place at a real Halloween attraction called The Bates Motel & Haunted Hayride, you can't help but feel like this film is something that is riding a more popular and iconic horror film and comes off like something SyFy would have produced. Beside that, the film contains very bad and lackluster acting, the story is boring and predictable, the gore effects are about as convincing as a roadside haunted house attraction, it has no cohesive tone and absolutely no atmosphere, you have to deal with two stars of "Jackass" being shoe-horned into the film, it tries and fails to be funny way too many times, and the main character is very unlikable.The film does have a solid performance from Zachary Fletcher but, even then, he eventually follows suit and ends up as bad as the rest of the cast. Overall, the film comes off like a cliché low budget horror film and is just completely forgettable in almost every single way.

Maybe its due to my seeing this movie immediately AFTER having the misfortune of watching "After Darks Film:The Haunting of Whaley House", but I did not find this movie to be near as crappy as some have opined it to be. In fact after having watched what is a very real crap-fest "The Haunting of Whaley House", I actually rather enjoyed "The Bates Haunting". Don't get me wrong this is indeed a very much B-grade horror flick, but its definitely one that has enough redeeming qualities to hold my attention throughout, as well as the movie as a whole made complete sense. The actors did a fine job of playing each of their respective roles, the gore scenes are done very professionally and would rank right up there with the quality special effects of some of the grade A-horror movies. It had a beginning, middle, climax, and an end that left me feeling satisfied with the overall movie.Maybe the fact that I had just watched the REALLY-pathetic-in-EVERY- SINGLE-WAY-movie, "The Haunting of Whaley House", that had me going into "The Bates Haunting" with very little expectations, but whatever the reason I can tell you that this film was miles apart from that pathetic garbage, and offered more than enough entertainment that left me totally satisfied at the conclusion of the film. I even took the time to REwatch "The Bates Haunting" the next day to see if my opinion of it changed and/or if it would even be tolerable for a complete repeat viewing...and I can tell you that Yes, it did hold up, I watched the entire movie again,and had no change of heart as to how I felt about the film going into without having had the horrible misfortune of viewing "Whaley House" immediately before hand.To me, that says an awful lot due to the fact that there are quite a few "good" horror movies that just don't hold up in repeat viewings, whereas "Bates" absolutely did!

Actually... it's more like 'Welcome to amateur hour (and twenty minutes).' This, incidentally, is about an hour and twenty minutes more than you'll probably feel is worth spending with this film.'The Haunting of Bates Hotel' has no actors that you've probably heard of. Yes, I know, many a great film has been made without stars. Tom Cruise or Brad Pitt alone doesn't guarantee a film's success. However, this one doesn't just not have stars; it also doesn't have actors. Seriously... these people's LACK of acting talent is almost amazing. I know it's a horror movie and so I wasn't expecting Oscar-worthy performances, but this is going to extremes. I really can't let the bad acting lie... it was like they just let anyone on set and allowed them to say the lines how they liked.The film is about a *supposedly* haunted house on some farmland in small-town America. Only it's not haunted and everyone knows that. The owners just put on some horror-themed events to bring in the money. However, a year after some girl gets horribly burned to death by 'accident,' more killings start to emerge.It's not all bad (most, but not all). The setting itself is quite a nice place for a slasher movie, i.e. a place where there are already *deliberately* plenty of gory props to confuse and startle the hapless victims. And there are some nice homages to existing horror icons, i.e. Freddy Krueger's jumper etc.But, the odd brief glimpse of Jason Vorhees' head-sack isn't enough to save this catastrophe of a film. It tries to be really funny. It fails. It falls flat on every attempt at humour and just comes across as cringe-worthy. Plus the gore isn't that good (yes, I know it's a cheap film, but I've seen student zombie films with better effects than this one) and, despite trying to be really post modern and self-knowing, it falls into every horror cliché going, i.e. 'have sex and die.' One word: avoid. If you've ever seen a horror film then it was better than this one. If, by some miracle you haven't ever seen a horror movie... then don't start with this one. If fact, just make your own horror flick with the video camera ap on your smartphone – guaranteed it'll be better than this!

I'm a lifelong horror fan, and there's a lot out there, especially streaming, that you can be spending your time watching. A lot of it is pretty horrible. I can assure you this one is not as horrible as those movies, and is a good time.Don't go into this wanting to take everything seriously. The Bates Haunting has more of a tone like the Hatchet movies - old school styled horror, can laugh at itself, and hits the ground running so you're never bored watching it. Kind of like Hobo with a Shotgun but not all "LOOK AT ME!!!" about everything.What's worse than a boring horror movie? Nothing. Even that, that you're thinking right now as you're reading it. Trust me, I've seen a lot of boring horror movies.I can go on and on about The Bates Haunting and why you should watch it, and in turn, bore you out of watching it. I'm not gonna do that! I can boil everything down into one line that will make or break you wanting to watch:TWO PEOPLE GET EATEN BY A COMBINE HARVESTER.If you can't appreciate that, what are you doing reading reviews about horror movies? Go play POGs with the neighbor kids or something instead. They still make those, right?