When the Haunter Gets Captured by the Game

Haunter (2013) is another ghost story that's right in our (my) zone - small scale, not too scary, young female protagonist, clever twist. The twist is, it's from the point of view of the ghost.

It stars Abigail Breslin, a teenaged girl with a nice family - Mom Michelle Nolden, Dad Peter Outerbridge, and little brother Peter daCunha. It's the Sunday before her birthday, and she is slouching around with her walkman on (it's the 80s, you see) and giving everybody attitude about how everything is the same every day, and will be tomorrow as well. And she's right, the next day she wakes up on the same day. But this isn't Happy Death Day. You see, she's already dead, and she knows it. 

When she is in her bedroom practicing Peter and the Wolf on her clarinet, she starts to get flashes of another girl, from another time, who also plays clarinet. That girl, Eleanor Zichy, is still alive, living in the same house. Breslin, technically, is haunting her. But she's not worried about ghosts, she's worried becuase her father is an abusive jerk going psycho working on the family car. 

This live girl tells Breslin where to find a certain scrapbook, which details a series of murders that have taken place in the house, going back to the 1890s (?). However, a scary pale man (Stephen McHattie) warns her not to investigate any more. The closer she looks, the more awful her family will become - her own father will become abusive (and start working on the car). And it's true. The only way to get the family back to the loop of a not-so-bad Sunday is to ignore what she's learning.

Of course, she doesn't do that at all. She finds the hidden door, the hidden cellar, the hidden past. She sees it all in a sort of sepia-toned, shadowy vignetted color old-timey movie of the origin of the whole problem. And you bet she kicks its ass.

This is nicely low-budget - one set, the house (ghosts can't leave the house where they died). It's a Canadian production, with Canadian actors, except for Breslin, who was in Little Miss Sunshine. I'm not sure the premise is used as well as it could be, but it worked for me anyways. The last act, when it gets really scary, is also a little silly, but that can be a problem with these movies. Still, I enjoyed it, but Ms. Spenser thought it was too silly and not scary enough. Since we're programming horror all October, I'm sure I'll get her sooner or later.