Before the director duo of Scott Beck and Bryan Woods established themselves as top-shelf horror helmers with 2024’s “Heretic,” they demonstrated their genre bona fides with “Haunt” (2019). (They’d also gotten on the map as writers with 2018’s “A Quiet Place.”) The biggest flaw of “Haunt” is that it’s, well, generic.
But it was clearly fun to make, as the writer-directors get as creative as they want in constructing a haunted house, then send teens into its maw. The setup is simple but engaging, because Katie Stevens’ Harper has been beaten up by her off-screen alcoholic boyfriend and she’d like to be around some good people on Halloween. Enter her friends — plus the requisite Good Guy, Nathan (Will Brittain), to show her she can do better. Harper may be a cliché, but we like her.
It’s random that there’s a little-advertised haunted house attraction off a backcountry road, but Beck and Woods don’t linger on the unlikelihood. We logically know entering this thrill ride without checking Yelp reviews is stupid, but at the same time we want to see what’s in there. We’re willing to let a cast of actors we’ve never heard of be our surrogates.
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“Haunt” (2019)
Directors: Scott Beck, Bryan Woods
Writers: Scott Beck, Bryan Woods
Stars: Katie Stevens, Will Brittain, Lauryn Alisa McClain
“Haunt” seems to have edited out key moments in order for the film to be released with a certain run time or rating. A haunted house story should have us following the group through every step in the corridors to keep up the tension. But at times we skim over some steps; and more jarring, some attacks happen off-screen. We only see the aftermath.
Slashing of the wrong kind
The film is also thin on a sense of mystery or theme. The theme is simply that Harper’s parents fought and now she herself is in a relationship with an abuser. If she can overcome this haunted house, maybe she can overcome her real-life inability to stand up for herself. This is basic slasher-movie stuff; not off-point, just so familiar it’s hard to get worked up.
The haunt is sketchy (or are these people young enough to simply say “sketch”?). I don’t mean in the sense that the operators are literally harming their customers, but in the sense of “How can it exist?” As for the online reviews, they can fake them. But if people are disappearing there, surely word would get out and there’d be an investigation. Conversely, if they are very conservative in the number of victims they take each Halloween season, is it worth the construction effort?
Worth it or not to the bad guys, they get points for creativity. Wiggins-inducing scares include people reaching their hand into a hole to feel what’s on the other side, something driven by peer pressure. Several thresholds must be passed, though, otherwise the person will be stuck in the maze. Testing her claustrophobia, Harper must enter a standing coffin and close it in order for the door to open on the back side; it leads who knows where.
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When the bad guys take off their masks, it’d be nice if that was a shocking mystery reveal. But, although the buildup is good inasmuch as we get to know Harper and a few friends, the film has too small of a roster for there to be any mystery. “Haunt’s” style also cues us that this is a slick slasher with human villains. For an incursion of the supernatural into a haunted house attraction, I recommend “Hell House, LLC.”
As a simple dissertation project showing Beck’s and Woods’ ability to craft scares and tension as directors, “Haunt” is mostly successful as a slasher. It’s just too bad the editor got carried away with the slashing.