THE ABANDONED –Sister and brother reunite under the worst of circumstances, to wit, inside a haunted farmhouse in the middle of a forest whilst being menaced by their zombie doppelgangers. It’s a crap thing to happen when all they were trying to do was sort out an inheritance. ‘The Abandoned’ is quite an odd little film that makes up for in atmosphere what it lacks in narrative grace. It really goes in for ickiness and dereliction. The farmhouse, whose interior somehow holds the key to a foundational trauma linking sis and bro, looks impressively repulsive, every surface caked in mould or some other foul gunk and permanently bathed in a sickly green glow. It’s exactly the kind of film for anyone who delights in watching torchlight fall upon a squalid stairwell descending into nothingness. Perhaps inevitably for a movie that’s falling back on vibes rather than story, it counts on a viewer accepting of a certain dreamlike illogic, but you’ll have to give the makers the benefit of the doubt during moments of high clunk; for example, after being attacked by her zombie double for maybe the third time, the lead character goes “f*ck this, I’m getting out of here” (!) Anyway, I try to let that kind of thing bolster the unreality of it all rather than get in the way. The film splinters near the end and throws in some of the dubious time-slip stuff popular in its day (‘Time Crimes’, ‘Triangle’ etc), but at least takes care to spice up the incoherence with some vicious gore involving flesh ripping pigs and a bit of random nudity. I liked it; not quite as much as when I saw it fifteen years or so ago, but getting there. I don’t think it quite pulls off what it might be going for, but I’m a sucker for big, rotting houses. Staff include director Nacho Cerda, of ‘Aftermath’ and ‘Genesis’ infamy, cinematographer Karim Hussein (well known on the horror underground for mystical portmanteau pukefest ‘Subconscious Cruelty’) and non-transgressive UK TV face Anastasia Hille.
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