If you’ve read this blog for any length of time, then you’ll know that I love a good ghost story. I found this movie while wandering through Best Buy on Saturday and was intrigued enough with the synopsis to buy it. The first half of The Abandoned crawled to the point that I stopped playing the movie about halfway through.

One of the problems was my mild dislike for the character, Marie Jones (played by Anastasia Hille), who flies to Russia to search for her birth parents. I didn’t understand her bitterness and mistrust toward people until I watched the rest of the movie tonight. Then, I only got a glimmer of her backstory.

She discovers that both of her parents are deceased and that she has inherited their house in a remote part of the wilderness. For the first half of the movie, expect to watch her stumbling around one of the creepiest houses ever shown on film. Director Nacho Cerda did a great job with this, as well as the Russian wilderness backdrop.

The action got somewhat better when her alleged twin brother, Nicolae, appeared on the scene and helps her fight off the dopplegangers that keep following them around. What their purpose was, I didn’t find out until the very end. Why the murders took place wasn’t revealed, only that it did take place and the ghost of their father wanted them back.

This movie was heavy on creepy effects and weak on plot. While it was refreshing to see a 40-something protagonist, I didn’t like the character, although I felt sorry for her when she learned the truth about her family. Because of this, I wouldn’t recommend buying the movie. Rent it instead, if only to see the house.