The Haunting of Whaley House (2012)

RATED- R
RUN TIME- 89 MINS
WRITERS- JOSE PRENDES
STARRING- ALEX ARLEO, ARIELLE BRACHFELD AND GRAHAM DENMAN
DIRECTOR- JOSE PRENDES




Synopsis taken from IMDb
Just because you don't believe in ghosts, doesn't mean they don't believe in you!




Here we go again with another story about "the most haunted house in the world" or "the most haunted house in America". How can their be so many haunted houses that are the most haunted? I hate when movies use this as a promotional tactic to get people to watch their film. However, the Whaley House is supposedly the real deal.

I'm not exactly an expert on the Whaley House. I don't know the story behind it, so I have no clue how accurate or inaccurate this film is, so I'm not judging it on that.

Ghost stories are just as bad as zombie movies nowadays. Everyone and their mother thinks they can do a haunted house story, the same way people do with zombies. They're the most overused topics in horror films. I can't stress how badly they're overused and how bad most of them are. It's to the point where whenever I come across a haunting or zombie movie I get real iffy. I'm tired of wasting my time.

The film is about a group of teens who visit the Whaley House, despite being warned not to. Of course some of them don't believe in ghosts and only want to come along for laughs. Others are into the paranormal and really believe in ghosts.

This movie had very little character development, they gave you some bits and pieces of a back story between characters but nothing that holds water, or that we care about. Their acting and character development fits the standard of almost all low budget horror films, it's nothing to get you behind the characters. Characters are the most important part of the story, whenever you have a kick-ass horror film you usually have a great lead character. This film lacks that.

 The effects in this movie were disappointing. They fit a movie of this stature, but that's what hurts this film. When you do this you fit in with other films who took the cheap route due to budget. This film lacks motivation and gives you cheap parlor makeup that look like they were done at home. If you want to stand out and make a good movie that leaves an imprint and doesn't get lost in all the other deplorable ghost stories, you need something that stands out, that makes an impression. Putting more money into the makeup department on this film would have helped alot.

There's a scene in this film that stands out to me where one of the teens becomes possessed, and it was a damn near direct ripoff of The Evil Dead when Cheryl gets possessed. I appreciate the homage to a horror classic, but don't be so obvious and don't waste it on a cheap generic plot.

The acting was horrendous. I appreciate these actors and actresses playing in this movie, but they didn't put any effort into making their characters likable or believable.

Although the house in this film isn't the actual Whaley House, I liked the house. It was a nice touch. It looked like it had history and could be haunted. It looks like one of the houses you see on Ghost Hunters or Ghost Adventures.

I really liked the ending to this film. It was quite a shocker. The last 10-15 minutes of the movie actually got interesting and I thought the twist was obviously common, but it was done in a manor that made it not matter. The final scene of this film is powerful, sad and tragic.

In the end, The Haunting of Whaley House has it's perks and redeemable parts, but not enough to overlap the generic story and really bad acting.

THIS FILM GETS 2 REAPER SKULLS OUT OF 5