Mikes Film Talk

The 2015 horror film The Abandoned is best described as “dreamy horror.” It has a pretty solid cast but it tends to borrow from other films a bit too much.

Behind the camera

The Abandoned is co-written and directed by Eytan Rockaway and its his first feature length film. It feels a little too much like the 2001 film “Soul Survivors” to be blazingly original.  The storyline also seems to borrow some storyline from The Orphanage, Fragile and a bit from The Devil’s Backbone . This all seems a little like a case of points off for lack of originality. However, the film is entertaining and not a little nerve wracking. 

The story

Jason Patric who played a disgruntled surgeon on the FOX mystery/thriller Wayward Pines and also played Michael in the iconic  horror film The Lost Boys is teamed up with Louisa Krause . They both work security in an enormous building full of rooms and horrible secrets. 

Streak (Krause) is the new guard who needs to make this job work as it is her last chance. The young woman and single mother has mental issues. She may lose her daughter if she cannot succeed at this one. Cooper (Patric) is the man who runs the CCTV system. He has seen more guards come and go than Carter has little pills.

The two form an uneasy alliance and then Streak lets a homeless man in (played by Mark Margolis) to shelter for the night. This is against the rules and Cooper worries that they will both lose their jobs. 

Streak develops a fixation on a room that Cooper says does not exist. When she goes to investigate, She finds a door and she hears sounds from behind it.  Later she opens the door and enters a part of the building that houses a dreadful secret. Soon she and Cooper are caught up in events that theaten to kill them both.

Problems

There are a few problems with the tale. Krause is too up and down to be a security guard and Cooper goes from being downright aggressive to heroic in a very short space of time (one night) and the “reveal” when it arrives, throws us right into “Soul Survivors” territory, sans Elisha Dushku and Wes Bentley.

Actually there  are a number of these “while dying” films on the market: “Dead End” – where Ray Wise and Lin Shaye travel an eternal road after a hit and run, “Devil’s Mile” – where a trio of kidnappers are trapped on an endless road trip, “Reeker”  – a group of college students end up on the road trip to Hell.

This is a personal favorite with a young Arielle Kebbel. She proves that no-one can scream it better than she can in The Grudge 2,  and Michael Ironside. The man who has died more times in films that Sean Bean.

*Reeker also had an pretty unique plot dealing with smell and a clever script, made in 2005 on a shoe-string budget it is a brilliant little film and has a couple of surprising twists in it. Check it out if you can.*

Back to the story

Back to The Abandoned  Patric does manage to make his character more likable as the film progresses (he is a major douche at the start) and Krause, despite the need to strip to a tank-top for the latter part of the film, moves from annoying to someone  we support.

It works?

The final twist is a “good ‘un” but there is no real logic in the events that lead up to it.  The “damaged” children in the building are the only real connection and everything else is a stretch.

The building’s interior is sumptuous, the main bits at any rate, but little time is spent there as the film focusses on what is happening in the basement.  The goings on there are spooky and there are a few jump scares on offer.  Sadly the ghost children thing has been a little overdone.

the verdict

Regardless of the wholesale borrowing from other films, The Abandoned is a solid 3 out of 5 stars for watchability and that is down mainly to Patric and Krause. Streaming on AMC + at the moment and at just under an hour and a half it is worth a watch but not necessarily two.

The trailer