Stop me if you’ve heard this one. It was a dark and stormy night. Five travelers on a remote mountain road get caught in a flash flood and their car runs off the road. Even though they were warned not to take the road they are on by local law enforcement. Some are slightly injured; the only building for miles around is a strangely isolated, forebodingly huge house high on a hill.
Wait, it gets better. The old man who appears to be the only inhabitant does not want them to come in the house; they beg and plead since some in their group are injured. The bearded old man reluctantly lets them in to give them shelter, but orders them not to go anywhere in the building but the lobby. The building is an inn but nobody has signed the register since 1978 you see.
Naturally the American (Peter Facinelli, the Twilight franchise), his English fiance’ (Sophia Myles ) his daughter (Nathalie Ramos), the daughter’s boyfriend and a television journalist (Carolina Guerra) all do what characters in a horror movie have to do in order for it work; go where they were told not to, do what they were told not to and then suffer horrible consequences.
And in what has become a new cliché’ for horror films, there is no cell phone reception at this lonesome place, and no land lines either.
To be fair THE DAMNED (originally titled Gallows Hill) does bring some fresh air to some well worn horror movie situations. For starters the movie is set in Columbia and well over half the dialog is in Spanish. All the actors are on top of the material and there are several jump out of your seat moments and some truly creepy ideas.
THE DAMNED goes in unexpected directions and I can respect that in any film. When the visitors go into the basement of the house (dark of course and only one flashlight) they discover a little girl locked in a boarded up closet. We immediately suspect that we’re in torture porn territory and we couldn’t be more wrong.
The little girl, named Anna Maria, is not at all what she appears to be, and naturally, as it must, all hell breaks loose and there is much carnage, mayhem and spilling of blood. All of the actors literally throw themselves into the spirit of the thing. The ladies in particular come up with some bizarre body language and movements, creepy looking stuff that must have been inspired by the Japanese horror films like Pulse and Ringu.
THE DAMNED is well worth a look if you love horror movies, other movie geeks may not be so generous.
THE DAMNED is available on VOD now and in select theaters August 29.
Watch it on iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/movie/the-damned/id894432607
