HAUNTER (2013)

Studio:       IFC Midnight
Director:    Vincenzo Natali
Writer:       Brian King
Producer:  Steven Hoban
Stars:     Abigail Breslin, Peter Outerbridge, Michelle Nolden, Peter DaCunha, Samantha Weinstein, David Hewlett, Sarah Manninen, Eleanor Zichy, Stephen McHattie

Review Score: 

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Summary:

Inexplicably forced to relive the same day again and again, a teenaged girl must solve the mystery of her haunted home and its dark connection to a sinister serial killer. 

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Synopsis:     Show/Hide Spoilers

Lisa Johnson is woken on Sunday morning in 1985 by a walkie-talkie message from her little brother Robert. Robbie tells her that he and his imaginary friend Edgar found a pirate treasure and he wants his sister to meet them in the secret cave. Outside, the home is surrounded by thick fog. The telephone is also out. Lisa goes downstairs where her brother plays Pac-Man on the Atari 2600 video game console in the living room. Their mother Carol tells Lisa to do the laundry. Lisa mentions that she did it the day before, but her mother does not remember. Carol also tells Robbie to find his lost glasses. She then asks Lisa what she wants to do for her birthday tomorrow while adding that Lisa’s father Bruce is still trying to fix the family car. Lisa practices the clarinet in her bedroom.

Her parents sit Lisa down to discuss her strange behavior. Carol wants to know what happened to some clothes that went missing from the laundry. Lisa tells her parents that the clothes are gone every day. When Bruce asks her to explain, Lisa tells them that every day is the same. Bruce is always fixing the car. Carol makes pancakes for breakfast, mac and cheese for lunch, and meatloaf for dinner. The evening ends with the family watching “Murder, She Wrote” and the exact same events then repeat themselves the following day, but only Lisa ever realizes it. It is always the day before her sixteenth birthday. Lisa tells them that they are stuck in the house. Bruce asks why. Lisa’s response is cut off by her little brother screaming for Lisa to shut up.

The day repeats. This time, Lisa hears strange noises while doing the laundry. The phone rings, but Lisa hears only static on the other end. Someone whispers Lisa’s name while she practices the clarinet. During the night, Lisa sees the shadow of someone walking outside her bedroom door. She follows the shape to the attic, but is frightened back to her room when the attic door shuts suddenly.

The day repeats again. While doing the laundry, Lisa moves the washing machine and finds a small red door hidden in the wall, but it is locked. Lisa hears another noise in the attic and discovers a knocked over box with a home movie on a Betamax videocassette. Lisa watches the tape of her family moving into the house in 1984 and notices a shadow in the front room window. Lisa tries using a Ouija board. Lights flicker and an old television screen cracks when she sees a man reflected in it.

After dinner, Bruce smokes a cigarette, which Lisa has never seen him do before. The family also does not watch “Murder, She Wrote.” Bruce becomes agitated when he notices Lisa watching him fix the car. A shadow enters Lisa’s bedroom while she hides under the covers. Lisa is confused by the change in events.

Lisa wakes to a walkie-talkie message from Robbie asking her to come downstairs because something is wrong. Having discovered that the spark plugs have been removed from the car, Bruce goes into a fit of rage against his wife and daughter.

The confrontation is interrupted by a pale man at the door who claims to be there to check the downed phone line. Lisa speaks to the man in her bedroom. He asks her how long she has been awake. He tells her to ignore any strange noises or voices that she may hear in the house. The man says that if Lisa ever tries to contact the living or anyone else, she and her family will suffer in unfathomable ways. Bruce does not have a cigarette after dinner. Frustrated and confused, Lisa tries riding her bike into the fog to escape, but always ends up returning to the garage. She tries using the Ouija board again, but receives no response. When she returns to her bedroom, Lisa finds another girl under the covers. The room shakes violently as the two girls touch. The girl, Olivia, asks for Lisa’s help and tells her to “look under the floor” before the vision ends suddenly.

Sunday begins again with the familiar routine. Under the floorboard in her bedroom, Lisa discovers a scrapbook of newspaper clippings about a series of murders. The first murder victim from 1953 is named Frances Nichols. Another article reports a second missing girl from 1954. The clippings go all the way into the 1970’s. In the back of the book, Lisa discovers a key that unlocks the red door in the cellar. Inside the secret room, Lisa finds discarded bottles of ether and mementos from the murder victims. She sees a vision of a girl pleading for help inside the furnace before it erupts in flames. During breakfast, the pale man calls Lisa on the phone and tells her not to be a “Busy Betty.” He says that it is his house and she is not to open doors meant to remain closed.

Lisa returns to the breakfast table and sees a boy sitting in the chair set for Robbie’s imaginary friend Edgar. She also has a vision of her family decaying into corpses. Lisa then finds herself in Olivia’s body in the present day and reads a newspaper report that Olivia printed about the death of Lisa’s family in 1985. Lisa then relives the out of place day when her father smoked a cigarette except with Olivia’s family.

After returning to 1985, Lisa receives a walkie-talkie message from Robbie to meet him in the secret cave. It turns out to be a trick played by Edgar to trap Lisa in the room with the red door. Lisa finds a ring and eventually escapes to the garage where she finds Frances Nichols trying to escape in 1953. With the ring, Lisa convinces Frances that they are the ghosts of murder victims, but the pale man pulls Frances away.

Lisa wakes in the garage. She finds an empty ether bottle and realizes that her father killed their family. Lisa holds her mother partly responsible for allowing the murders to happen as she screams at Carol to wake up. Now wearing his glasses, Robbie accepts that he is a ghost. He was afraid to wear them because he was wearing his glasses on the night that they died.

Lisa returns to Olivia’s body and finds a recorded message waiting for her on an iPad. Olivia tells Lisa that the pale man is Edgar Mullins. He was born in that house and murdered all of the women there until his death in 1983. Olivia was able to connect with Lisa after finding Lisa’s old necklace. Olivia asks Lisa to help her save Olivia’s family. Possessing Olivia’s father, Edgar confronts Lisa and returns her to 1985.

Carol tells Lisa that she has woken up. The clothes were missing from the laundry because Carol had packed bags for her and the children in preparation for leaving Bruce. Lisa tries to convince her father of the truth by forcing him to find the car’s missing spark plugs. When he accepts that he killed the family after being influenced by Edgar, their world collapses.

Now able to go outside, Lisa watches her family leave while she willingly stays inside the house. Lisa relives the moment when Edgar murdered his own parents. She then finds herself in Olivia’s body once again. As Olivia’s father’s rage escalates, Lisa hides in the secret room. She uses the ring to try summoning Frances, but Edgar knocks out Lisa with ether.

Lisa wakes inside a car in the garage to find herself bound. Olivia is also bound in the front seat. Lisa escapes her duct tape restraints, but pretends to still be captive when Edgar brings Olivia’s sister to the car. Lisa is able to grab Edgar’s keys and she flees outside. Edgar chases her to the lawn where he is confronted by the ghosts of Frances Nichols and all of his other victims. The ghosts surround Edgar and burn him in the secret room’s furnace. Olivia’s family is saved. Lisa returns to her time and discovers that it is her sixteenth birthday. She opens the door to the outside and sees the sun shining.

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Review:

Because Lisa Johnson appears doomed to repeat the same Sunday before her sixteenth birthday over and over again without end, it would be easy to simplify “Haunter” by describing it as the ghost story version of “Groundhog Day.”  The “what is real” and “who is a ghost” aspects will inevitably draw comparisons to “The Sixth Sense” and “The Others,” too.  But whereas the hooks in those two cases were their climactic reveals, “Haunter” uses its twist as the catalyst for a more richly layered story.  The buildup is just as important, if not more so, than the revelations themselves.

An average day of laundry, practicing the clarinet, and watching “Murder, She Wrote” with the family is already boring enough for any teenager.  Mundane turns into monotonous when Lisa becomes hip to the fact that this is literally the same routine that she has had every day for the past week.  “Haunter” opens with Lisa already resigned to her predicament, as well as to the futility of convincing her family that they are unwitting participants in the repetition.  With the premise out in the open upfront, the story wastes no time in putting the characters and the audience on a level playing field.

The audience also does not have long to wait for whispered voices and bumps in the night to send Lisa into fits of wide-eyed fright.  Confined to the family home thanks to a choking fog outside, Lisa begins unraveling the mystery of her time paradox confinement and how it relates to the house’s haunted history.  Ghosts from the past, present, and future then collide for a unique take on several familiar horror movie themes.

As Lisa, Abigail Breslin is called upon to showcase an impressive range of emotion for any actress, much less one of her young age.  A less capable performer under the tutelage of a less talented director could have easily mired her character in a one-note portrayal of gape-mouthed shivering and typical teen angst.  Without much dialogue to fall back on, Breslin emotes through strong visual characterization.  She wears a complex look of confusion, frustration, worry, and ennui that sells her as a multi-faceted personality through screen presence alone.

Vaguely reminiscent of a thin Rutger Hauer, Stephen McHattie exudes towering menace as an imposing serial killer despite pale skin and a slim frame.  All of the actors, no matter how small the role, could be called out individually for their striking contributions.  Suffice it to say, the cast is more than up to the task of fulfilling director Vincenzo Natali’s vision.

That vision is a carefully constructed blend of classic ghost story, haunted house thriller, and serial killer suspense.  As “Haunter” melts from one sub-genre to another, jump scares give way to eerie tension, which in turn pave the path for visceral shocks of terror.  Typical conventions are on hand, including a Ouija board, an all too real imaginary friend, a secret buried under a floorboard, and more than one ghostly possession.  But it is a fantastic experience watching Natali dip into that toy box only enough to stay effectively creepy.  “Haunter” satisfies on multiple levels because it paints around several corners of increasingly frightening intensity.

In more than one instance, however, Vincenzo Natali is guilty of overindulging in fanciful artistry.  Excessive strobe flashes and film speed changes try harder than necessary to accent the mood in a few places, although these scenes are outweighed by a far greater number of interesting visual choices.  A slow motion dissolve of bodies decaying into skeletons and a skipping record motif to depict a scene from the past are two such memorable moments.

Natali is also not the only one who tries doing too much, albeit with good intentions.  There are subtler ways to depict a day from 1985 without dressing the haunted house like a nostalgia museum.  From Pac-Man on an Atari 2600 to a Ronald Reagan television speech, a Rubik’s Cube, a Betamax videocassette, and even an 8-track tape, the production design goes just a touch overboard in selling the retro time period.

“Haunter” starts as a seemingly simple goosebump ghost story before spinning the atmosphere on its ear at every twist and every turn.  That beginning of false familiarity may give a seasoned viewer the impression that s/he is about to tread routine ground yet again in much the same way as Lisa.  That sigh of lowered expectations then ends up working to the movie’s benefit when “Haunter” evolves into one of the best haunted horrors in recent years.

Review Score:  85

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