At its best, it's an effective shocker with an atmosphere that seeps into your very bones. The problem is it's not always at its best, and when it isn't, it really isn't.

Heralds the arrival of a new talent that every horror fan should keep their eyes on, if they're not covering them with their hands.

The relatively tame horrors on display here may disappoint fans of the director's gut-spelunking short Aftermath, which made him an underground hero on the abra-cadaver circuit.

As the heroine wanders around her old, rundown childhood home, the movie itself wanders, trying to find its purpose, meaning, and even, it seems, a worthwhile starting point.

the movie equivalent of a rookie algebra error

Perhaps the worst offense of The Abandoned, however, is that so little effort is made by the screenwriters to make any 'sense' of it all.

This is coming from a guy who really enjoys a "slow burn" ghost story: The Abandoned is a grade-A snoozer.

Alas, this is another faceless frightfest in which its so-called boisterous boo is not conducive to its creepy-crawling bite.

If only [Cerda's] storytelling and filmmaking techniques were on par with his compelling subject matter, The Abandoned might have been a horror movie worth screaming about.