The Abandoned

Spanish director Nacho Cerda's English-language haunted house flick The Abandoned opens with a prologue set in Russia, circa 1966, in which a bloodied young woman frantically drives a truck down a mountain road, barely managing to deliver two squealing infants to a farmhouse before she dies. Flash forward 40 years: Marie (Anastasia Hille) travels to Russia at the behest of a strange notary who's discovered the identity of her parents and gives her the deed to their property—a long-deserted family home entirely surrounded by a river save for a single bridge—where she finds her long-lost twin brother Nicolai (Karel Roden), who has also been summoned by the notary. The two begin sharing visions of a man beating a woman, as well as threatening images in which they see themselves bloodstained and apparently dead. Much of The Abandoned consists of interminable shots of the pair stumbling down dank hallways or through nocturnal forests, interrupted periodically by the aforementioned apparitions and occasional flashbacks that reveal, in fairly gory detail, what actually happened four decades earlier. The downbeat ending suggests that although you can go home again, it certainly doesn't pay to. Not recommended. [Note: DVD extras include a six-minute “making-of” featurette, and trailers. Bottom line: a paltry extras package for an undistinguished horror flick.] (F. Swietek)