Haunt (2019)

Directed by: Scott Beck, Bryan Woods | 92 minutes | horror, thriller | Actors: Katie Stevens, Will Brittain, Lauryn Alisa McClain, Andrew Caldwell, Shazi Raja, Schuyler Helford, Phillip Johnson Richardson, Chaney Morrow, Justin Marxen, Terri Partyka, Justin Rose, Damian Maffei, Schuyler White, Samuel Hunt

Halloween, somewhere in America. A group of students go out in the car, looking for booze, fun and other Halloween entertainment, such as a visit to a haunted house. Such a haunted house is a fairly American phenomenon, a combination of haunted house and escape room, not comparable with a Dutch haunted house at the fair. Our students get the thrill of their lives when they see such a haunted house along a deserted country road, an ‘extreme haunted house’ that is.

What follows is predictable and original at the same time. As can be seen from the summary, the premise of ‘Haunt’ is not very inspired. The same goes for the rest of the plot. Anyone familiar with the genre knows what to expect. He also knows the answer to the question whether all students make it to the end of the film and if so, with how many limbs are still intact. And he also knows that there is always a main character (in this case the young Harper) who has the best chance of escaping.

As predictable as the story, so original is the interpretation. Normally such a house looks most like a picturesque case from a gothic novel (19th century or earlier), but here it is more like a warehouse with separate rooms. Those rooms are often pretty creepy, although we won’t reveal anything about that. The fact that the film has enough scare moments says it all for such a worn-out sub-genre.

But what really makes the film worthwhile is that as a viewer you never know how dangerous the next room is and where the danger lies. Some rooms turn out to be reasonably safe afterwards. The employees of the haunted house also seem more helpful at times than at other times. They are terrifying anyway, and silence is their main occupation. Because the music – often too controlling in horror films – plays a modest role here, you really never know where you stand.

It is a pity that the characters are on the flat side and that the acting is not always convincing. The trauma that main character Harper gets and that we look back on with her, was not really necessary either. Apart from that, watching ‘Haunt’ is a nice horror experience, thanks to the inventiveness and smart choices of the makers.