Plot Details: This opinion reveals major details about the movie's plot.

Each year there are movies produced that are never seen by the public. Their content is considered too graphic, too disturbing, too shocking for general audiences. This is one of those films.

In 1966, a Russian family is sitting down to dinner when an overheating truck comes to a halt outside their farmhouse. Inside the truck is a dying woman, bringing her two babies to safety before she dies. Flash forward 40 years and Marie Jones is returning to Russia at the behest of a notary who claims he’s tracked down her birth parents and there is property left behind that now belongs to her.

Marie, who has often wondered about her parents, but never had any information with which to begin a search, hires a driver to take her to the family farm, only once there the driver disappears and Marie is left alone in an abandoned house, 40 years quiet and broken down, with nothing but the ghosts. Literally. As she’s exploring the house, Marie encounters her doppelganger, white-eyed and soaked through. Naturally terrified, she takes off into the woods surrounding the house--the house sits alone on a small island, reachable only by bridge--where she slips and tumbles into the water. Bad news for her, because Marie can’t swim.

Luckily a man, Nicolai, was nearby, and he pulls her out and brings her back to the house. When Marie wakes up, she discovers Nicolai is her twin brother and he’s also been contacted by the same notary to come and claim his inheritance. And that’s when things go from bad to worse.

As the siblings explore the house, trying to piece together what happened the night of their mother’s attempted--and eventual--murder, they both encounter their doppelgangers (Nicolai’s is bloody and mauled) while the house itself undergoes a number of changes as well. Caught between the past and the present, Marie and Nicolai struggle simply to survive in the midst of forces both powerful and mysterious as their birthday gets closer and closer, the house gets more and more dangerous, and their fates become all the more a reality.

Nicolai falls into the basement through a hole in the floor--a hole that vanishes when Marie returns with a flashlight--leaving his sister to try to find her own way out of the house and off the island, but once she reaches the water and rows across to the other side, another trek through the woods brings her right back to the house she was never meant to escape in the first place. She goes inside to find Nicolai returned, the house cleaner and neater, and a birthday cake sitting on the table.

They were meant to die 40 years ago, Nicolai explains, and now the house and its inhabitants have brought them back home to correct the mistake made when their mother lived just long enough to shoot their father and rescue her children. See, when I watch a horror movie, this is what I’m talking about.

While THE ABANDONED may have some problems--dialogue is a bit iffy, and the story gets complicated and convoluted at times--it’s got the kind of wildly unpredictable plot I crave as well as some outstanding genuinely creepy moments. You watch this one in the dark, and THE ABANDONED is going to provide several instances of looking over your shoulder.

Written by Karim Hussain (SUBCONSCIOUS CRUELTY and ASCENSION, neither of which I’ve heard of), and directed by Nacho Cerda (previously directed a 25-minute documentary about the movie THE MACHINIST, called THE MACHINIST: BREAKING THE RULES), THE ABANDONED is one of the most atmospheric and tense horror movies I’ve seen in years. For my taste, it’s the kind of movie I want everyone to see, the kind I want to talk about for days and days. Remember that part with the coffee cup, and Marie gets up to leave the room and the camera pulls back and you see just the hand of her doppelganger almost out of frame? Remember the first shot of the doppelganger, with that blank look and the white eyes, or when Marie tried to hide in the wardrobe? How about how the camera kept viewing the siblings through windows or slats in the wall, accentuating the notion of another presence in the house with them?

Part of the credit must go to director of photography Xavi Gimenez (the Anna Paquin flop DARKNESS and TRANSSIBERIAN) who has crafted some truly cold and lonely images in this movie, from the locations to the lighting to just the way the camera moves. Production design and set decoration were incredible as well. Even though it’s filmed on a set in Bulgaria, I didn’t know that until I watched the “Making of” featurette on the DVD as everything about it looks so genuine. I question just how likely it is a house would stand isolated and untouched for 40 years, especially when there’s been a murder there, but that aside, it really looked like anyone could come in, clean the place up, patch a few holes, and live there without having to bring anything but their own clothes and some food.

The two main characters, Marie and Nicolai, are played by Anastasia Hille and Karel Roden. The only movie on Hille’s resume I recognize is THE HOLE, but it was so long ago I saw that I remember only that Keira Knightley pulled her top down for a second and flashed someone. Of the two, Roden is more familiar to me, and most likely to everyone else as well, as Rasputin in HELLBOY among about a million other notable roles. I knew I recognized him from somewhere, but after this movie, I’ll always remember him. I think it might be the role. He was playing one of the good guys this time and there’s something about his portrayal here that really set off something in the way I perceive him. As the victim, Roden possess a vulnerability I never would have guessed he was capable of. While Hille was the obvious star, Roden stole the spotlight in the scenes they shared.

Hille was no slouch herself, though. Marie Jones was a fully-realized character and Hille brought her to life wonderfully.

The special effects looked mostly physical, which I appreciate. CGI is simply used too often when it doesn’t have to be. The house moving backward in time and things returning to their former glory, obviously would have been CGI, but at least the doppelganger effects were real, and they were awesome.

Of all the original line-up of the After Dark Horror fest’s ׆ Films to Die For”, this was voted “fan favorite” and its DVD release was delayed so it could have a wider theatrical release on February 23. I’m guessing it wasn’t TOO wide a re-release as I’d never heard of it, but that’s neither here nor there. What counts is that THE ABANDONED was a fan favorite and that’s a well-deserved honor because, of those original 8 films, it’s easily the best.

The DVD package is nothing special. There’s no commentary track, only a 5-minute making of feature mentioned earlier. English or Spanish subtitles, as well as English closed-captioning are available, which could come in handy as Roden’s dialogue is sometimes too quiet. The movie runs 98 minutes and, at times, you really begin to feel those extra few minutes, but that’s due to parts of the plot not making much sense (for instance the basement seems to consist of a very long concrete tunnel, like an access way you’d see in a nuclear power plant or military installation, but it’s never explained what it’s doing beneath a 40-year-old Russian farmhouse on an island in the middle of nowhere), and losing these scenes would have tightened the narrative a bit as well as clearing up some of the confusion.

For my money, though, I’ll take a few seemingly out of place but still just as moody scenes any day over the kind of predictable tripe most Hollywood horror movies offer these days. It’s not perfect, but viewed against about 95% of any other random horror movie you may encounter, THE ABANDONED stands head and shoulders above them. It’s a dank and chilly movie with some unforgettable images and a plot you can’t unwind in the first ten minutes. Maybe it’s a tad over-ambitious, but that beats being another copycat among the flock any day.

Recommended: Yes

Viewing Format: DVD
Video Occasion: Good for a Rainy Day
Suitability For Children: Suitable for Children Age 13 and Older