Haunt

2019 Directed by Scott Beck and Bryan Woods

Horror Marathon 2024 Day 6 Film 14

Late after a Halloween party a group of friends happens upon a roadside horror attraction. Somehow they seem unphased by one of the group's feeling that they're being stalked. Goofy teen horror antics ensue, with them eager to sign away a liability form and give away their phones to enter the haunted house. A creepy masked figure drags a bound girl into a room behind plexiglass- branding her face before smoke fills the room.

Most of the film carries with it small scares of the horror funhouse- setting up moments where the characters don't know if it's a real spider or fake ones, or pushing their hand through some random hole to feel cooked spaghetti as brains. The music creeps up, and the spooky atmosphere becomes terror for the group- with body parts maimed or weaponized traps. The odd thing is that the impending doom of the first part of the film where the characters try to not react to the brutal things going on in front of them seemed more scary to me than when the teens realize what's going on.

This is in part due to the quick slasher nature of the deaths- simply gutted quickly without any of the sense of terror and torture that they laughed off previously. I was just hoping for some more capably scary scenarios like when they set up a person being put in a coffin full of spiders. This at least keeps the film moving pretty quickly- though some of the film is dragged by one of the character's backstories. It didn't really add much for me, and by the time the plot tries to shoe horn more mythology of the masked figures it becomes too expositional. I'd have rather just pondered at what was going on than have the mystery revealed. The finale feels full of tropes and cliche storytelling- especially with the third act final girl, but there are some good moments of juicier thrills.