2019s Haunt is a surprisingly slept on film, at least in my opinion. While it's gotten more and more praise every Halloween season since it’s debut six years ago, I still feel like it deserves more love, especially this time of year. Haunt follows a group of young adults out on the town for Halloween fun until their night takes a sinister turn after going inside a mysterious "extreme haunted house" they find an ad for. From then on the night spirals into a bloody and intense nightmare. The film is written and directed by Scott Beck and Bryan Woods, the very same duo who wrote the screenplay for A Quiet Place and last year's Heretic. While Haunt hardly shares much of the same DNA as these films, I find myself coming back to Haunt far more.
The film stars Katie Stevens (Polaroid), Will Brittain (Kong: Skull Island, The First Purge), Lauryn McClain (Daddy's Little Girls), Shazi Raja (Brad's Status) and Andrew Lewis Caldwell (Transformers, The Matrix Resurrections). As well as Damian Maffei (The Strangers: Prey at Night, Stream, Wrong Turn), Chaney Morrow (Malum, Mutilator 2) and Justin Marxen (Dead Awake, Field of Screams).
No matter how many horror movies I watch, I've always been easily spooked in real life haunted houses. So naturally I love horror films that place inside haunts and other spooky roadside attractions, and with films like Hell House LLC and The Houses October Built it seems to be a growing sub-genre in horror, a sub-genre I call "haunted house gone wrong". However, I feel that there's a lot about Haunt that sets it apart from other entries in the subgenre. As the group travels through the haunted attraction, they can't help but get a sinister feeling some of the scares are a lot more real than they'd prefer, with a hauntingly realistic looking torture with a hot branding iron being the tip off that things aren't as they seem.
As they progress further into the haunt they begin questioning the masked employees, leading to a series of deaths in the group. I feel it's important to note that while this movie is no Terrifier in terms of bloodshed, it doesn't shy away from some pretty gnarly kills, one in particular involving a hammer really shows that this film isn't concerned with drawing lines. I also found myself insanely impressed with the films production design, each room of the attraction is a blend of feeling like a fun and inventive haunted house while other parts feel like loose and sketchily painted materials nailed to the wall by psychopaths, which they were. The entire set just oozes this evil Halloween essence and it makes each watch so much more fun, I kind of hate that I would totally go through it.
One thing in particular that makes Haunt a cut above the rest is its villains, the monster masked murderers roaming the attraction. Each killer sports a vintage, almost cartoonish mask depicting a monster. Whether it be a ghost, zombie, witch or a devil. For the first half or so of the film the masked psychos are simply following the group, watching and only occasionally interacting with them directly, however after a certain point things take a turn. Once their masks come off things take a sharp turn and reveal the killers may be closer to their mask counterparts than one would expect. There's some super cool make-up at play with these villains, making Damian Maffei and Chaney Morrow unrecognizable.
While the film occasionally trips over itself trying to make the main characters deeper than they are, such as playing into typical tropes for strong slasher film heroines, the cast all give serviceable performances and are given some brutal kills. I also want to give credit to this films unwavering dedication to the spooky Halloween setting, every square inch of this film makes it the perfect Halloween horror flick and I find myself watching it every year because of it. Again, I can’t stress enough how impressive the production, set design and makeup is for this film, especially given its modest budget. It also looks like the team had a blast making it, a type of fun you can feel through the screen at times.
Overall, Haunt is a fun Halloween monster mash. It's creepy, brutal, creative and just packed to the brim with those spooky Halloween vibes horror fans crave this time of year. If you can’t take my word for it, it may help to know that following its premiere on Shudder it took the spot for #1 most watched movie premiere of 2019. It's a film that bleeds haunted house Halloween fun, and I can't recommend it enough to folks looking for a fun little low budget slasher to play during this festive season.
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