

Around her wrist, she wears a rubber band, and when she feels her anxiety mount, she tugs it in order to literally snap out of her thoughts. The couple’s newborn is colicky, and his incessant crying has made it difficult for Sara to connect fully. We know as little about them as they know about the house, but it’s clearly evident that things are not well with either. The optimistic young family seeking a home? A hellish history of the location? Creepy neighbor? The main characters seeing various disturbances, which may or may not be an illusion? All are present in the script by Erik Patterson and Jessica Scott.Įmma Roberts stars as Sara, who, along with her husband Alex (John Gallagher Jr.), seeks respite from the city in a spacious farmhouse. If you would like to rent Abandoned and help us out in the process, click here.All the trappings one would expect from a haunted house film seem baked into every scene of director Spencer Squire’s Abandoned. One can certainly do worse, and casual horror/thriller viewers could potentially enjoy it.Ībandoned tries to snatch your baby as it heads to theaters on June 17th, and to Digital and On Demand on June 24th.Īs an Amazon Associate, we earn from qualifying purchases. Roberts gives it her all, and hits the right notes. Yet, Abandoned still manages to be, at the very least, palatable and entertaining. Strictly for Emma Roberts completionists, this flick will cause an unexplainable level of psychosis in any sane viewer. Abandoned is simply a straightforward horror drama with cheap, dated scares, and postpartum symbology that falls flat. One moment presented as a twist felt so obvious all along that its eventual reveal amounts to little more than a shrug. To start things off, Abandoned takes the exact story beats one is expecting, featuring minimal surprises. Michael Shannon also inexplicably shows up as a creepy neighbor next door who knows more than he lets on about the shadowy mysteries of the family’s new home. Both lead actors are exceptionally good, and made me long for them to have better material. A lazy approach with the husband gaslighting Sarah made me roll my eyes, mainly because we have seen this trope time and time again. She starts having accidents with baby Liam to the point where Alex is very concerned for Sarah’s mental well-being.

Try as she may, Sarah cannot get these voices and sounds out of her head. Sarah spirals, hearing loud banging and children laughing in the crawlspace behind the immovable bedroom wardrobe. Sarah’s depression threatens to return as she begins to hear strange noises in their new home… Sarah impulsively decides to take it anyway-“I don’t mind a little haunting,” she insists. The property has a shadowy past, as it is the site of a suicide and double homicide. It all seems too good to be true, and indeed it just may be. Sarah (Emma Roberts, American Horror Story, Scream Queens) and her boyfriend, Alex (John Gallagher Jr., Come Play, 10 Cloverfield Lane) have found the perfect deal: an idyllic farmhouse to grow together with their newborn baby, Liam, that comes complete with a much closer commute to work for Alex.
#Abandoned movie movie#
A movie needs more than constant screaming and growing manic confusion to make it good, and unfortunately, nothing beyond Roberts’s performance is even halfway original. In this regard, the film doesn’t disappoint, as it presents ample opportunity for Roberts to flex her certified scream queen vocal chords. If you are like me and love Emma Roberts, you will probably want to see it anyway. At times, I felt the movie was trying too hard to emulate Apple TV’s far superior show, Servant.

Abandoned is a generic PG-13 horror film trying to symbolize postpartum depression, presenting a messy modern take on The Yellow Wallpaper.
