The Writers of "A Quiet Place", producer Eli Roth, halloween themes, a haunted house - sounds like a decent recipe for a fun horror flick, which it was. Even though I liked it, I wouldn't trust those who say that it's fresh, inovative or is the best haunted house film.
"Haunt" offers us an old concept with minor changes - addition of some cool elements which I won't discuss. A bunch of teens, with a (one way or another) troubled girl as the main character wind up in a hanted house attraction in the middle of nowhere. It's heard of, innit? This is where the better part of the movie starts, directors Beck and Woods manage to entertain us without cheese or unnecessary humor, instead giving us atmospheric enough trip through a what feels like an improvised but effective haunted house. Cool masks, many killers, fun times. With time it gets more gruesome, but also starts to suffer slightly from pacing issues & the characters start doing (or not doing) questionable things/choices/actions. Let's just say that a some amount of general horror movie dumbness can be found in here as well. I found the ending to be a bit underwhelming, it felt like something either more original or more crazy could've been done there. From an aesthethic standpoint, "Haunt" is just fine, not a Hollywood production, but not sloppy either & the gore is great.
After the first 50 minutes or so I was sure it's gonna be a 7/10, I can always appreciate and get a kick out of halloween-themed horror movies, but, sadly, "Haunt" ended not as a great movie, but as a good (or decent) one. A solid, relax-your-brains entertainment which You might visit another year around the time of Halloween season. My rating: 6/10.
