Haunt Movie Review (2019)

One of my favorite subgenres in horror is the haunted house/haunted carnival films in which unsuspecting people are terrorized and are not sure what is real and what is just part of the show. You're constantly questioning what's happening because you don't know if the supposed victim is actually just fucking with their friends or if they're actually being killed off one by one. There are a plethora of these types of films like 'Hell Fest', 'The Funhouse Massacre' and 'The Houses That October Built', but none of these I have found as entertaining as 'Haunt'.

The one downfall of these types of films is that they all pretty much follow the standard formula of a group of people who are either lured to or just so happen to stumble on the location/attraction and chaos ensues from there. 'Haunt' is no different; however, it excels in creating a genuinely tense and terrifying stroll through the funhouse with creepy costumes and tortuous traps only rivaled by something from the 'Saw' franchise. 

Here, we see our cast of victims, err, I mean innocent college students, looking for some excitement after leaving a Halloween party. After serendipitously running across a haunt in the middle of nowhere, they are suspicious almost immediately after having to sign a waiver just to enter, but can't pass up the opportunity. Shortly thereafter they are met face to face with someone dressed in a witch mask with a screaming girl in a body bag who takes a burning fire poker to the face. Interestingly enough, one of the girls in the group meets the same fate.

After a few injuries, the group finds a seemingly empathetic player in the haunt who seemingly helps them find a way to escape, but as you may have guessed...he doesn't have their best interest at heart. After his betrayal of the group is when things really pick up. The group gets broken up and all of the masked figures come out to play with unwavering viciousness and brutality. This also brings us to the point where many of the figures we have been introduced to throughout the film unmask themselves and you can see that they all have self-mutilated their faces to give them truly grotesque appearances.

The final act features a pretty sadistic battle between our final girl (Harper) and (presumably) the master of the menagerie of all this mayhem and the cleansing of the rest of the masked figures...except one. After escaping and being released from the hospital, Harper sets a trap for the last man standing and upon entering her home, the camera pans to her as it shows her blowing his head off.

~TJ