Critic's Grade: C-

Frank's film tip: ABANDON(ed) all hope because there's not much cheese on this Nacho's chip-off-the-old boo-infested block.

Spanish co-writer/director Nacho Cerda has an eerily perceptive vision that some horror fans know all too well. In Cerda’s innovative and grim 1994 short film Aftermath the filmmaker proved that instilling an audacious and salacious tone to his frightening fare is certainly what the genre was desperately looking forward to well over a decade ago. This mid-nineties macabre melodrama was a needed jolt in the arm and generated a perverse passion (and new appreciation) for daring and diverse creep shows. Unfortunately for Cerda, his magical morbid touch wasn’t reserved for his first feature-length venture The Abandoned, a dour and drab suspense piece that has all the chintzy chills of accidentally stepping on a rusty nail.

For starters, The Abandoned tip toes into that obligatory (and overused) realm of conventionality found in countless boofeststhe haunted house. Cerda fails to elevate any new energy into a tired premise about creaky domiciles. Hence, the film is absolutely boring and has no concerted sense of style or imaginative zip. Sluggishly somber, The Abandoned is surprisingly a stillborn production although the film has its periodic moments of atmospheric moodiness with an occasional festive flair for visual flashiness. Cerda has shown a limited capacity for helming colorful and corrosive narratives on a small scale previously so to hold back and let the pedestrian direction dictate the spotty flow in his full feature film debut is almost criminal to say the least.

Cerba and co-screenwriters Karim Hussain and Richard Stanley oversee this flimsy European ghost story with a wretched shadowy feel that wallows in its incomprehensive murkiness. There’s an indescribable aura about cinematographer Xavi Gimenez’s that gives The Abandoned some of its peek-a-boo allure but the film for the most part looks as if it is basking in mismatched colors courtesy of someone melting a box of crayons on the screen. The story is incoherent and convincingly weak. In addition, the acting is almost as invisible as the apparitions featured in this hazy and haggard haunting fable.

An American movie producer named Marie (Anastasia Hille) returns to her homeland in the Soviet Union by way of politico Andrei Misharin’s (Valentin Ganev) invitation. Andrei just discovered the deed to the abandoned property known as “The Island” and wants to inform Marie of her entitled Russia-based inheritance. Local resident Anatoli (Carlos Reig-Plaza) is selected to drop off Marie at her newly acquired estate. Shortly afterwards, she meets up with Nicholai (Karel Rodin) who introduces himself as Marie’s long lost brother. Nicholai was instructed to visit The Island by Andrei so that he can claim his domestic stake as well.

Once Marie and Nicholai bond as siblings and enter the haunted family home, the movie becomes hopelessly claustrophobic as its one-note premise finds the pair ridiculously dodging random spooks and trying to overcome relentless flashbacks regarding their imperiled childhood. The movie stalls when the tandem is confronted by all sorts of jumpy objects lurking in dark corners. The scary aspect of the film is lamely concocted. The manufactured and annoying twitches and turns register as false and phony. There’s nothing that goes on worth the anticipation where the viewer can benefit from any real anxiety since the isolation with the two major characters are stranded (just like us watching) in a rickety hair-raising household that has more predictable bumps and grinds than a senile dance hall girl.

The mediocrity that plagues The Abandoned is too glaring to describe. It’s too bad that Cerda’s creative compulsion didn’t wreak the havoc as it should have heartily demonstrated. Alas, this is another faceless frightfest in which its so-called boisterous boo is not conducive to its creepy-crawling bite.

Frank rates this film: ** stars (out of 4 stars)

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