Haunt

Making a virtue of unoriginality, this clammy little ghost story, confidently directed by Mac Carter, conjures a whole heap of atmosphere from little more than clever camera angles and bedsheet apparitions.

By the time the final act unleashes its revelations and peril, "Haunt" has felt more like an exercise in formal spookiness than a full-blooded story of lingering malevolence.

There's lots of mixed film stock and screeches on the soundtrack (as in the credits for "Seven"), but this gets annoying, as do the predictable twists.

There is virtually nothing in Mac Carter's horror flick that deviates from the standard haunted house plot (or, in this case, plod).

I've had bigger scares from the windows at FAO Schwarz.

The frustration here comes from the filmmakers' inability to present characters with dimension, so that we might come to identify with them and their fears.

While it may not necessarily give horror fans a case of the heebie jeebies any time soon, it's just nice to see a moderate supernatural thriller actually put forth some effort and not just give us another paint-by-numbers spookfest

Brutal and violent, it becomes obvious in hindsight how much this film needed less replication and a bit more bite.

Given a better script -- or at least, one that was a little more self-aware -- Haunt could have been a solid scare.

A respectably old-school chiller that feels sort of refreshing, even if it doesn't leave much of an impression.

a nice little slumber party thriller to watch with the lights off

A humdrum, even irritating slog that, safe to say, won't be giving anyone a sleepless night.