This article was written by the awesome @ruthmreis, I’m just posting it for her 🙂

The Abandoned, director Ido Fluk, starring Jason Patric and Louisa Krause

The movie takes place in an abandoned building, originally designed to be a luxury apartment dwelling but with the economic bust, it was never finished and remained uninhabited. Not too hard to name this movie with that being the backdrop. 

Our main character is Louisa Streak, aka Streak.  Because of a phone call with her mother at the beginning of the movie we know she needs this new job. As her mother says, “…this is your last chance or they’ll take Clara away.”  After the phone call Louisa downs some pills.

It turns out her new job is as a security guard of this building, along with a bitter Jason Patric known as Cooper in the film. Cooper is a drinker, we know this because he is downing beers and drinking from a flask, and belching, a man after my own heart.  Also, we find out he uses a wheelchair, but because he spends the first 10-15 minutes in a rolling desk chair, we don’t know that.

This doesn’t come out until he can use it as an opportunity to make Louisa feel guilty for making him go down and turn away the homeless man pounding at the front door. Of course, filled with pity for Cooper, she accompanies him and tells the old man no to entering the building. But, this being a horror movie, she relents and puts him in a room, telling him not to make her sorry for her decision. The homeless man, Jim, agrees.  Yet the minute the door closes, he begins muttering to his dog and pulls out a big, shiny knife, and swallows down some pills.

During one of Streak’s earlier patrols of the basement, because everything bad happens in a basement, she came upon a large metal door that was padlocked. The padlock was rusted over to show how long it had been there, or that there was a humidity problem.  It’s hard to tell because there really isn’t much of a timeline, just vague references.

Here’s my first problem with the movie; it is Streaks first night on a job we know she needs to help her keep her child, however, she becomes obsessed with the padlocked door. It might be because she heard sounds behind it, or she’s like a kid with a present, has to open it NOW.  Whichever it is, she doesn’t give her daughter, or her situation, a second thought and proceeds to bash the lock open.

It’s after this, and the ensuing scare she receives in the locked off area, that we learn she isn’t crazy, that she has the ability to see things.  I’m not going to give you more details of the movie, though there are some startles and gasps, for Streak at least.

The building is perfectly eerie, though how this off limits area is linked to the apartment building, I’m not sure as it is not discussed. All we know is beyond the door it is supposed to be unfinished.

Okay, one more bit of info; due to a 5 second search on the computer, Streak finds a video about the building.  It’s a news story, Geraldo Rivera like (even down to the big mustache), that takes us into the Center for Physically Deformed and Mentally Challenged Children. We have film footage that is meant to shock.  From the style of dress, I would say the footage takes place around the 80’s.

As I watched this movie, I really wanted it to make me jump in my seat and peek through my fingers as I hid behind my hands. Sadly, it didn’t.  While it has some good visuals, part of it is seen though security video headsets, it wasn’t enough to give me chills.

I kept waiting for the build-up, but it never came.  Again, visually, this movie was very well done, however the horror factor was fairly low. That said, as a directorial debut, this didn’t completely disappoint.  I’m just glad I saw it relatively cheap through VOD. It’s also out in theaters.  Who knows, maybe on the big screen, it delivers better.

I do want to mention that there is a twist ending.  It could have really made the movie better, but it was a bit convoluted and felt thrown in at the last minute.

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