Abandoned, The

EMAIL PRINTLionsgate / AfterDark Films

5.4 User Score:

Mixed or average reviews

Based on 8 critic reviews
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Based on 10 votes
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Movie Info

Genre(s): Foreign | Horror

Written by: Nacho Cerdà
Karim Hussain
Richard Stanley

Directed by: Nacho Cerdà

Release Date:
Theatrical: February 23, 2007
DVD: June 19, 2007

Running Time: 96 minutes, Color

Origin: Spain

Summary

RATING: R for violence/gore, some disturbing images, nudity and language

Starring Anastasia Hille, Karel Roden, Valentin Ganev, Carlos Reig, and Paraskeva Djukelova

An American woman searching for her birth parents learns she has inherited a house in the middle of a forest in a remote area of Russia. It is the house where she was born. Abandoned and uninhabited for 40 years, it stands in total disrepair and neglect. What she finds is more than an old house. She meets a mysterious man who claims to be her brother, a twin she never knew. Together they find that the house holds secrets to a past they don't remember, forced to relive a series of horrifying events and shocking murders that occurred just after they were born, in the place they were supposed to die. (Lionsgate)

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What The Critics Said

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

TV Guide Ken Fox

By the film's downbeat climax, Cerda's dread of death and uncertainty about digging too deeply into what's better left buried have become palpable, and The Abandoned lingers beneath the skin as any decent horror movie should.

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The Onion (A.V. Club) Scott Tobias

The Abandoned is a rare horror film that moves from the real world into a kind of psychic space, and slowly suffocates its characters inside their own heads.

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Variety Dennis Harvey

Minimally plotted but beautifully atmospheric nightmare.

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The New York Times A.O. Scott

After a while, Mr. Cerdà exhausts his repertory of spooky effects -- too many dark hallways and illogical, foreboding point-of-view shots -- and you begin to hunger for exposition, always a bad sign in a horror film. Even worse is that, by the time the explanations arrive, you no longer care.

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LA Weekly Jim Ridley

Cerda's striking creep-show atmospherics, desaturated palette and off-kilter editing rhythms are a style in search of a movie: The muddled "Twilight Zone" payoff here is hardly enough to justify a sluggish two-character round-robin of "Don't look in the basement!" The last thing a filmmaker named Nacho needs is more cheese.

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Austin Chronicle Marc Savlov

It's no "Dellamorte Dellamore," but neither is it "Uwe Boll," a smallish favor we should all be thankful for.

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Boston Globe Erin Meister

With a "Lost"-meets-"The Haunting" plot and a handful of convoluted thematic twists involving family, history, murder, and death, The Abandoned limps into a nebulous kind of horror netherworld, peppered with painfully long tension-building sequences and unimaginative dialogue.

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Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman

The gimmick in The Abandoned is that people battle their zombie doubles, whom they can't kill, since they'd be killing themselves. But the movie sinks so deep into deathly atmosphere that there's no life to it.

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What Our Users Said

The average user rating for this movie is 5.4 (out of 10) based on 10 User Votes

Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Michael L. gave it a7:
Not perfect, but far from the worst horror flick I've seen lately. Nice, atmospheric camerawork, decent acting, a good plot twist, and the unique Russian setting ultimately make this a watchable movie. Definitley got under my skin, and provided a few good scares to boot.

Sam gave it a6:
The original story and scares save this movie from the horror droll that's been in the theaters as of late, but the confusing and complicated ending left this viewer unsatisfied.

Maurice gave it a9:
It scared the pop corn out of my mouth!

Bob H. gave it a9:
Very good movie to any one who likes horror movies.

Marty O. gave it a1:
This movie is way, way overrated. It tries to be creepy and weird, but it's just boring to death and you stop to care about anything after a while, that's all I have to say.

Justin B. gave it a0:
I give it a zero because it's just that awful, the best word to describe this film is appalling. I don't even understand why this film was created, I also don't understand how a person could like this. [***SPOILER***]They would have to be into the sort of movie that goes nowhere, by the end of the movie you sort of wish you were the one that drowned.

James gave it a5:
If this was the "audience pick" for Horrorfest, I can only imagine how horrible the others were. The Abandoned begins with an interesting plot which reminded me of the old Ray Bradbury presents show, but falls off from there. The jarring and thematic cinematography (and sound) does not save this film's extremely slow pace and unsatisfying ending. It felt as if key plot points and backstory were left out. Directing horror is a tricky business. An important element is left out of most (if not all) horror films and that is character building. What makes and audience sit on the edge of their seats or keep hands firmly covering their eyes is not wanting to see characters in the movie they care about get off-ed by a monster or machete weilding maniac. By the end of this film's experience I wanted the underdeveloped characters killed off so I could leave and and grumble over the $9.50 I just wasted. Horrorfest was billed as " movies too scary and/or gory to be released to normal audiences" but this was niether. What could have been a taut psychological thriller ends up being late night B-film fodder for the Sci-fi channel.