This 1991 chiller is everything The Amityville Horror should have been and wasn't. While the bombastic performances and hackneyed,exploitative script in the latter film have garnered numerous parodies , The Haunted lets you know early on that this is no campfire story. The "disclaimer" at the beginning states that "though events of the supernatural have been subject to controversy, the events depicted were documented as true by a variety of sources." In the ensuing 90 minutes, this point is forcefully brought home due to a variety of reasons that broke exciting new ground in the stagnating haunted house genre. First and foremost,one is more apt to empathize with the characters than in your average horror film because they are down to earth, religious,middle-class people. This aspect of the film adds to its chill factor because one realizes that such horrible events could happen to anyone. Secondly, the film is well-paced and the supernatural sequences are shot with a level of intensity normally reserved for Sam Raimi's best efforts. The rape scene alone is enough to keep all but the most die-hard skeptics awake for nights on end. Thirdly, this film is devoid of the excessive excursions into pornography that too many early 90s horror flicks were wallowing in. So if you're looking for that rare synthesis between the 24-jumps-per second style of the Evil Dead flicks and the just-the-facts-ma'am attitude of Haunted History, this is your movie.
Review of The Haunted
