Before being depicted by overtly sexy and beautiful people in The Conjuring films, demonologists Ed and Lorraine Warren popped up on the TV in The Haunted. The Smurl family (terrible name) would get their own Conjuring film with The Conjuring: Last Rites, but I think it’s obvious to everyone that this cheap made-for-TV flick is the superior adaptation of their story.
When I first saw The Haunted as a wee child, I was scared shitless. I had been watching horror films since I was in diapers and few had any real impact on me (Child’s Play did force my mother to hide all the dolls around the house) but there is nothing quite as scary as things made for TV in the 90s. Tim Curry as Pennywise in the IT, that human/alien hybrid boy that stands before a UFO in the dream sequence in the Intruders, the level of CGI of the langoliers in The Langoliers, or the theme for The X-files. Scary shit.
Janet and Jack Smurl move into a duplex with their children and the in-laws. We all know moving into a new house is always risky since there might be ghosts about. The Smurls took that risk and paid the price. There were ghosts about. Not just any ghosts but the most unnerving depiction of ghosts I’ve ever seen: a floating shadowy cloud moving around emitting an eerie sound. The effect was probably cheap but it was effective as hell.
The family realizes soon that something is afoot. Hammers disappear, new paint vanishes, cold fog tickle the sleeping Janet, the bathtub releases bathing sounds, old granny hears cursing, and an overweight succubus rapes Jack.
Some of the things the ghosts do are worse than the others.
Now, the Smurl family are nice, decent, God-fearing folk, but they don’t get any real help from the church, so they go to the Warrens. The Warrens, in reality, were scam artists and not good people, but that’s not important information for this review. They can’t do much either. The ghosts aren’t even haunting the house anymore; they are haunting the family as seen in a terrifying scene where they go camping and a ghost follows them.
They go to the media which gets obsessed and intrusive making you wonder who are the real ghouls? The media or the ghosts? The answer is: the ghosts.
The film is very effective, although in a 90s silly way sometimes. It was directed by Robert Mandel, who also did The Substitute and the pilot for The X-Files. It was written by Darrah Cloud, who went on to work exclusively in the medium of made-for-TV Christmas movies. What shines brightest are the actors who are giving it their all. Sally Kirkland is a queen as the understandably-neurotic Janet and Jeffrey DeMunn is fantastic as Jack. All the supporting cast is great, especially Diane Baker (probably most recognized as Senator Martin in The Silence of the Lambs) as Lorraine Warren.
A fun flick that I highly recommend. It’s even on YouTube so there is no excuse.
