Director: Jason M.J. Brown
Year: 2015
Country: United Kingdom
Alternate Titles: London Haunting
Genre: Ghosts
Plot:
After getting lost in the wilderness, a group of friends get together to investigate the disappearance of another friend at a local abbey rumored to be haunted by undead ghostly monks and must try to stop their deadly plans trying to open a portal to another dimension while being trapped inside.
Review:
This was a decent enough if somewhat heavily flawed genre effort. One of the main positives to be had with this one is the inherently creepy atmosphere present throughout, as this manages to effectively create the idea of something supernatural happening. The randomized nature of the storyline, for all of its many faults, effectively brings about the kind of idea that the decayed and ruined remains of the abbey provide an ideal hunting ground for the ghost monks to carry out their plans on the different strangers that come along. With the select setpieces taking place in the creepy location within the darkened and decayed ruins, while also being able to get outside for several decent enough scenes in the surrounding woods, this has enough here to get some positive aspects.
There are big issues with this one that bring it down. The main factor here is the absolutely inane and just flat-out confusing storyline that never once makes any kind of sense whatsoever. There are two sections here with different characters, motivations, and plotlines that are featured here, yet neither of them intersect, references the other, or have anything to do with anything beyond involving the same group of monks at the same location. Whether they are aware of the other since a plotpoint of the second segment involved them arriving at the location to help a friend which could’ve easily been the couple in the first segment is never broached and the general lack of dialogue means the exploits of the ghost monks and their purpose is only given a select bit of lip service rather than a full-on explanation.
That doesn’t help matters with the generally paltry production values that make this one look every bit as cheap as expected. With absolutely zero sense for the time or day, with sequences taking place moments later being in broad daylight, the dead of night, or plain overcast skies, even though it was bright and sunny. This makes for a confusing enough time without looking even further, as there’s genuine evidence it was shot at different locations while most, if not all, of the few bits of dialogue here are being improvised for its generally cheap look. With a lack of gore and a somewhat sluggish pace that makes a seventy-minute running time feel far longer without much going on to help beef this one up, it does have some pretty major issues holding it down.
Overview; */5
A generally flawed and lacking effort overall, the few positives on display here do manage to bring this one out of the bottom run of the genre even though there are way too many flaws to do much about it. Give it a shot if you’re a fan of this kind of indie effort, or are not bothered by these issues but most others out there should want to heed caution here.
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