Director: Jessica Sonneborn
Year: 2014
Country: USA
Alternate Titles: Tainted; American Poltergeist 6: The Haunting of Alice D
Genre: Ghosts
Plot:
Moving into a refurbished mansion house, a group of friends decides to celebrate the occasion with a get-together involving them and some friends for a special party, but when they realize that the house is home to a vengeful girl’s spirit who killed herself there years ago must try to get away alive.
Review:
This was a wholly disappointing if slightly enjoyable genre effort. One of the few good parts here is the workable setup that offers the kind of decent starting point for this kind of feature. The backstory of the location, involving the means through which the girl and her mother get taken in by the prostitution house and sold into that line of business which includes numerous sexual escapades with the owner to the point that she finally sought to kill herself to escape, offers the kind of sympathetic turn that’s required for the film to bring us into her plight. With the modern-day encounters of the group arriving to party and using it for their vices during the night, including drugs, sexual kinks, and other shady dealings, the tie-in becomes quite well-established enabling it to work rather nicely not just as a revenge vehicle but also as a subtle dig at this type of behavior which is the main selling point here.
There are several big issues here holding this one down. The main detriment is the absolutely appalling and decidedly idiotic main party that takes place here which has a ton of issues with it. Starting with the idea of why it would be a good idea to have a party like this at a location that has the history it does as the family connection itself is more than enough to consider it questionable, how it takes place is immensely hard to sit through. With no one around to care for as the main group are degenerate sexists who call into question why their guests are hookers and prostitutes before berating them for going into that line of work while they’re nameless figures without common sense to leave the situation despite how they’re treated, it takes an insurmountable effort to figure out who we’re supposed to care for here. With it also being too cheap to be able to afford any kind of music or other party favors usually found in these kinds of films, this one suffers in that regard.
The other really big issue here is the film’s lack of embracing its genre attributes. The fact that the original ghost was sentenced to the area based on her history of being a prostitute and most of the cast is rounded out by modern-day prostitutes who are brought to the house specifically to sleep with the guys provides the motive for a lot of glorious sleaze to be employed here yet this has practically nothing at all. All the sexual shenanigans are done while clothed and all we see otherwise are brief glimpses that are far removed from the type of genre effort this is set up to be leaving this part curiously muted. Even worse is the overt lack of blood or gore as these are all done exclusively off-camera or at an obscured angle which makes it impossible to tell what’s going on or even provide any kind of cheesy gore for its kills which could’ve made this one somewhat better. Some of the confrontations do get somewhat suspenseful, especially in the second half where the characters being under the influence makes it harder to tell what’s happening so it has some suspense, but beyond that, there’s not a lot to this one.
Overview: */5
A really problematic and barely worthwhile genre effort, there’s not much to enjoy here overall as the series of issues here are enough to hold this one down quite significantly. Really only go for this one if you're a fan of the creative crew or are a genuine fan of the style featured here but almost all others should outright avoid this one.
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