The AbandonedMovie Reviews

So-so
Avg. Critic Score: 42 out of 100 Mixed or average reviews Metascore® based on all critic reviews
Information for Parents:
16 Not for kids 17 and under
Read Common Sense Media review

Critic scores range from 0 to 100, with higher scores indicating more favorable reviews.

  • 75
    The A.V. Club | Scott Tobias

    The Abandoned is a rare horror film that moves from the real world into a kind of psychic space, and slowly suffocates its characters inside their own heads. Read full review

  • 75
    TV Guide | Ken Fox

    By the film's downbeat climax, Cerda's dread of death and uncertainty about digging too deeply into what's better left buried have become palpable, and The Abandoned lingers beneath the skin as any decent horror movie should. Read full review

  • 70
    Variety | Dennis Harvey

    Minimally plotted but beautifully atmospheric nightmare. Read full review

  • 40
    The New York Times | A.O. Scott

    After a while, Mr. Cerdà exhausts his repertory of spooky effects -- too many dark hallways and illogical, foreboding point-of-view shots -- and you begin to hunger for exposition, always a bad sign in a horror film. Even worse is that, by the time the explanations arrive, you no longer care. Read full review

  • 30
    Austin Chronicle | Marc Savlov

    It's no "Dellamorte Dellamore," but neither is it "Uwe Boll," a smallish favor we should all be thankful for. Read full review

  • 30
    L.A. Weekly |

    Cerda's striking creep-show atmospherics, desaturated palette and off-kilter editing rhythms are a style in search of a movie: The muddled "Twilight Zone" payoff here is hardly enough to justify a sluggish two-character round-robin of "Don't look in the basement!" The last thing a filmmaker named Nacho needs is more cheese. Read full review

  • 25
    Boston Globe |

    With a "Lost"-meets-"The Haunting" plot and a handful of convoluted thematic twists involving family, history, murder, and death, The Abandoned limps into a nebulous kind of horror netherworld, peppered with painfully long tension-building sequences and unimaginative dialogue. Read full review

  • 16
    Entertainment Weekly | Owen Gleiberman

    The gimmick in The Abandoned is that people battle their zombie doubles, whom they can't kill, since they'd be killing themselves. But the movie sinks so deep into deathly atmosphere that there's no life to it. Read full review


Information for Parents
Common Sense Media says Not for kids 17 and under Slow, moody haunted-house shocker; not for kids.
What Parents Need to Know Parents need to know that this Spanish horror movie isn't for spookhouse-loving kids. While it starts out slow and relatively restrained, it ultimately builds to scenes of ghastly violence and horror, including people (and babies) drowning or fed to flesh-eating boars. There's also a lingering shot of a fully-nude woman and some language.
  • Families can talk about the appeal of horror movies. Why do people like being scared? What subgenres exist within the broad realm of "horror"? What makes something a horror film in the first place? Families can also discuss the prevalence of haunted-house legends around the world. What do you think the explanation is? Younger viewers might need an explanation of the difference between the Soviet Union's relationship with America in 1966 and that of the U.S. and Russia today.
The good stuff
  • message true0 Positive messages: The heroine is a divorced single parent/career woman who seems innately unhappy, but the characters are so thinly sketched that it's hard to get an impression of them or how their demeanors contribute to their eventual fate.
What to watch for
  • violence false5 Violence: Grisly scenes of boars eating human flesh, mutilated zombies, and a man digging a bullet out of his own leg and sterilizing the wound with a heated knife. Attempts to kill two babies (by drowning and feeding to pigs).
  • sex false5 Sexy stuff: A belated-but-lingering scene of full-frontal female nudity that doesn't seem to have much to do with anything. Another glimpse of bare breasts in a possibly pornographic movie on hotel TV.
  • language false3 Language: "F--k" and "s--t" are used under stress.
  • consumerism false0 Consumerism: Not an issue
  • drugsalcoholtobacco false3 Drinking, drugs and smoking: The heroine smokes, but she loses her cigarettes in a river early on and doesn't resume the habit.

Looking for more reviews? Movies.com Critics Say:

Dave White

3.5

Dave White Profile See Dave White's Profile

… creepy and dumb … Read full review See Dave White's on MOVIENAME on Movies.com

The Abandoned Movie Reviews + Ratings

Fans say

So-so
2 fan reviews

Critics say

So-so See all critic reviews