The Abandoned (2015)
Spoilers ahead because this movie made me angry...
You've been warned...
Alright, so The Abandoned suffers from a common horror trope of doing an amazing job and then giving up completely on the ending and causing the whole movie to fall apart. And I always feel so personally let down by this situation because I've invested my time into a movie and enjoyed myself watching it and then the ending hits and I'm sitting there with basically horror movie blue balls.
The Abandoned (also titled The Confines) came out in 2015 and is the directorial debut of Eytan Rockaway. It stars Louisa Krause as Julia, the main character who accepts a job as a night security guard at an abandoned apartment complex. Her co-worker, Dennis, is played by Jason Patric who is wheelchair bound and kind of a dick. The two start off butting heads quite quickly, Dennis annoyed because no one ever lasts in this night shift role.
Julia decides to go out and patrol the building and starts to hear and see things. She also discovers a locked room which Dennis tells her to forget about. BUT HOW COULD ANYONE?! Mysterious locked room in an abandoned building.....I want in!
A homeless man tries to get into the building to hide from the rain and Julia lets him in. She then breaks into the mysterious locked room and discovers some weird shit like child drawings and hospital beds. The homeless man follows her in and is quickly murdered by a ghost child. Julia goes back up to Dennis and the two of them research the building online finding a video that shows an investigative journalist uncovering the building they're in as an orphanage for the deformed and mentally-challenged children. The nurses and doctors treated the children terribly and abused them.
Side note; how many times has this been done before? God damn. It's based off of the real life expose of Willowbrook State School where Geraldo Rivera documented the tragic living facilities of thousands of children basically left to fend for themselves in a poorly run and understaffed institution. Rivera broadcast the expose and it shocked everyone. If you want to see this video, you can find it online, but watch with caution...it will shatter your heart into 1000 pieces and make you hate society.
It was also, of course, cleverly redone in American Horror Story; Asylum. But in the Abandoned it's more of an eye roll of course this is the story they chose moment. They even copied the original video. But again, not as well done as AHS accomplished it.
Anyway, in the movie, this is where Dennis discovers Julia is dependent on antipsychotic medication and his only reaction is to handcuff her......because...that's where we're at in the film. Dennis then goes down to the locked room and is taunted by the ghosts of the deformed children.
Julia goes down to rescue him and is lead by a ghost boy who shares with her the history of the place and how four children attempted to escape but were instead locked into a room containing a reservoir of disgusting water. When they got desperate they drank it and died all except one.
Look...anyway...ghost stuff happens, Julia almost dies, Dennis saves her and happily ever after right?
WRONG.
We are shown a hospital room where Julia is lying comatose and it is revealed that she is the daughter of Dennis Cooper who is sitting next to her bed in his wheelchair. We see some of the other characters from the movie as doctors or patients. You see....it turns out this was all a coma dreammmmm ~~~**~~~
It was literally all a fucking dream.
And I'm here to ask why?!
WHY
This movie was so much fun up until that last few minutes. It didn't need that little twisty turny garbage. It was a great, old fashioned, ghost movie set in an abandoned building. The scares were great, the ghosts were pretty terrifying actually, and the setting was creepy and perfect. The dynamic between Dennis and Julia was complex and interesting. Louisa Krause did a phenomenal job!
So...why...why would you bury your movie like this when it wasn't needed? Just end with Julia escaping and you've got yourself a great horror movie.
End it with "it was all a dream" and leave everyone watching annoyed.
And don't get me wrong, I love certain twists where it ends up that it was all a dream, or some sort of psychotic break. But I love it when it's done right. Like The Uninvited or Silent House.
I'm just pissed. It felt lazy and panicky.
But would I recommend it? Probably. The rest of the film was so great and pretty spooky. But maybe turn it off right before it ends and save yourself the disappointment.
(look...I'm watching horror movies again....hooray!)
Stay Spooky!
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