Haunter

Asylum for Nerds: A Joint review of “Haunter”

By: The Corseted Critic and The Film Junkie

The Film Junkie:

​When the Corseted Critic said she wanted to do a joint review of “Haunter” I thought we were going to be talking about the Pokemon, Haunter.  Instead, she has goated me into reviewing this silly little Horror film (as if I don’t’ watch and review enough of those for my other blog).  So here’s what I thought of the 2013 film “Haunter”​​​​​​​​

       “Haunter” is the story of teenage girl named Lisa Johnson (played by Abagail Breslin).  Lisa is your typical angsty Gothteenager girl, who listens to punk rock bands like The Cure and Siouxsie and the Banshees (here’s where I make the joke that “Little Miss Sunshine” is now Little Miss Darkness).  Lisa finds even more disdain for her life when she realizes that her and her family have been going through the same a routine the exact same day since 1985.  What is the reason for this anomaly?  Is there a rip in the space-time continuum that keeps Lisa in her family in the same day, day-after-day? Are they dead?  Is this purgatory? Or are their much darker forces to blame?​​​

​I heard one person refer to this film as a; “Well done version of an unoriginal idea”.  I think that is a fair description of the film.  Although, I didn’t find anything in particular that I didn’t like about “Haunter” Ididn’t find anything that drew me to it either. Even though it was a story about being trapped in time—and forgive me if this sound stupid—the story felt very repetitive.  Yeah, it nice that Lisa figured out what’s going on so quickly, but it’s just painful to have to watch her family go through the same realizations.  The plots pretty predictable too; I mean for a film that’s really trying to bank on the mystery aspect, they don’t do that good of a job.  I was fully aware of what was going on for like 90% of the film. I barely questioned anything. I can only think of one interesting twist to the plot that I saw in the film, but that’s just not enough to make me love this film.​​​​

​The films’ most positive aspect is having an actress like Abigail Breslin as its star.  It’s so good to see her branch out into newer more challenging roles.  We all remember her as little girl in the film “Little Miss Sunshine” and then she would go on to find success in films like “Zombieland”, and now she travels to the next possible level with the role of Lisa Johnson in “Haunter”.  I enjoyed her in this role.  I mean, she doesn’t really bring anything new to the role of Lisa, but her acting is passable.​​​​​​​

​For me “Haunter” is one of those: “it’s not a bad film, but it’s far from good”.  It’s visually appeasing, but not much else, and if you like Abigail Breslin as an actress you’ll probably find a few more things to like about this film.  But as for me—a personwho’s sat through over 300 Horror films, I find it didn’t bring us much to the screen as I had hoped.​​​​​   

The Corsetted Critic's view:

Unlike my cohort The Film Junkie, I quite liked the film Haunter. I watched it after he mentioned it on Facebook and (since I honestly didn't have any other idea of what to do this week) asked him to do a review on it with me. 

As he said it focuses on Abigail Breslin's character being the only person in the house who knows that everyone is dead, which I noticed five minutes in before it was actually stated. 

Aside from that, though, this film kept me guessing. Every time I thought I knew what was going to happen it threw a new change at me.

Also it did a very good job of creating character. I cared about these people and what was happening to them. This is mostly due to Breslin's acting. She pretty much carries the film and does it well. Her emotions drive the audience and got me so invested I almost started crying at a few points!

While we have seen this story (haunted house from the ghosts' point of view) in films before like The Others, I think that this film did it well. There wasn't really anything new about it, but I liked it. I think it's worth a watch and may even earn a more detailed (spoiler filled) review here soon!