SXSW Review: Haunter (2013)

March 15, 2013 Reviews No Comments

Cast: Abigail Breslin, David Hewlett, Stephen McHattie
Director: Vincenzo Natali
Country: Canada
Genre: Horror | Mystery | Thriller

The year is 1986. 15-year-old Lisa has been doomed to repeat the same day of her life as long as she can remember. Every day she eats the same breakfast, lunch, and dinner. She washes the same laundry and tells her mother she doesn’t know where the missing clothes went. Every night is capped off with the same episode of Murder, She Wrote, and there is little hope of a change in this monotonous routine. But when things start to go bump in the night, Lisa launches an investigation to determine the cause of this madness.

Abigail Breslin is truly magnificent and completely believable as Lisa, which is a must for a movie that relies heavily on its lead performance.

It doesn’t take long for Lisa to realize that her family has been dead for quite some time, stuck repeating the same day before the entire family was massacred. This is where the movie’s plot begins to get going. Not only does Lisa have to find out how her family became ghosts, but she has to convince the rest of them to believe her. Abigail Breslin is truly magnificent and completely believable as Lisa, which is a must for a movie that relies heavily on its lead performance. The limited supporting roles in the film are delivered with varying stages of success and are all rather forgettable, save for Stephen McHattie’s role as a creepy old man who wanders the house and controls everything that occurs inside its walls. McHattie seems to enjoy chewing the scenery as the film’s obligatory bad guy, though there are times when he ventures into unintentionally comic territory.

Perhaps the most commendable thing about Haunter is that it defies everything that we have come to associate with the haunted house film. While most films of this type showcase a human being haunted by a ghost, Haunter gives its audience a ghost being haunted by someone from the world of the living. The movie’s novel approach to telling a ghost story should be enough to warrant it a few brownie points, but while the setup is executed well enough, the resulting action is pretty mundane.

Perhaps the most commendable thing about Haunter is that it defies everything that we have come to associate with the haunted house film.

Haunter is never really terrifying or suspenseful and by most standards plays rather tame. The film’s deliberately slow and steady pacing results in a 100-minute running time, but the movie could have easily been at least twenty minutes shorter. I can’t help but wonder whether Haunter would have worked better as a short. Vincenzo Natali’s last film was Splice, which had a great premise and excellent visual aesthetic despite the fact that the script needed some work. With Haunter, Natali proves that while he is gifted at creating a creepy enough atmosphere, he still needs some work in the script department.

40/100 ~ BAD. Haunter shows great promise in its opening moments, but ultimately fails to engage and gets too complicated and silly by the time its reaches its close.

By Daniel Tucker

I never knew how movies could make your imagination soar until I saw "Star Wars," I never realized how inspiring they could be until I saw "Rocky," and I never truly appreciated film until I saw "Goodfellas." Film has been a central part of my life as long as I can remember and it continues to mold who I am. My " movies to watch" list is miles longer than my "movies I have watched" list. My only regret is not having enough time to watch them all.