Abigail Beslin

(On Cable TV, October 2020) Canadian writer-director Vincenzo Natali hasn’t directed enough movies. His output isn’t flawless, his endings are not ideal, and it’s not as if he hasn’t been productively employed directing prestige TV shows—but films like Haunter show how interesting he can be on a longer leash. It’s a time-loop film crossed with teenage horror, as a young woman (a baby-faced Abigail Beslin, quite good) and her family endlessly relive the day before their murder. Fortunately, she gets to realize the loop, and then the plot moves into much weirder territory. The best thing about Haunter is the atmosphere—the house in which this is all taking place is isolated in the middle of a foggy nowhere, and Natali can portray even an ordinary house with considerable foreboding. The second-best asset of Haunter is its initial mystery—but that soon dissipates as explanations crowd out the enigma. As it goes along, Haunted does lose quite a bit of interest—silliness and convention replace mystery, and the narrative becomes more contrived to accommodate all of its disparate elements. But for a while, it’s promising and even effective. At some point, Natali may eventually produce something great.