The Abandoned (2015) [review]
The Abandoned (2015) [review]
Good horror movie, ultimately more sorrowful than scary
Quick Review
Good film.
Released under 2 names. I’ve always known this movie as ‘The Abandoned’ (2015). While trawling for box art, I came across the same movie under the name ‘Confined’ (2016). This latter name appears to be the more widely distributed version as I was unable to find it for purchase as ‘The Abandoned’. Whichever iteration you watch, it’s a good story. Technically it’s a bad story. The movie is good. Mostly.
Unfortunately ‘The Abandoned’ is littered with jump scares. It’s redeemed through the top tier acting and an almost interesting story. It abruptly ends with weirdness to get viewers questioning and revisiting certain events. Although I don’t believe there’s any greater hidden meaning to be found, even for the most anal of movie whores.
The well blended supernatural and psychological horror elements help distract from the mediocre plot construction. I would label ‘The Abandoned’ a laid back horror. There’s not much sense of urgency or impending doom. The main characters are harassed by whispers, ghosts, electrical failures and a possible murderer. However, there was never a sense that the lives of anyone were threatened. Scratch that, there was 1 time pertaining to a knife.
The movie is well paced and engaging, though the lack of plot complexity is likely what hampered its mainstream success. Both main characters are introduced as horribly unlikable people. They’re not. It’s complicated. Unlike the story, which was great in concept but misses key elements to engage the more worldly movie fans.
A confined film (ack ack ack), with a limited cast and good effects. There are some decent scares to be had. If only twists and design had been fleshed out a little more.
Overview
Genre(s): Horror, mystery, jump scare
Location(s): Abandoned apartment building in the USA
Writer(s): Ido Fluk, Eytan Rockaway
Director(s): Eytan Rockaway
Main Actor(s):
‘Louisa Krause’ as ‘Streak’ (Julia)
‘Jason Patric’ as ‘Cooper’
Official Synopsis:
“Take a terrifying plunge into the warped mind of a disturbed young woman. Desperate to get her life back on track, the unstable Streak takes a job as a security guard, working the graveyard shift at a once upscale, now abandoned apartment complex. But on her first night on duty, she discovers a horrifying presence lurking deep with the bowels of the decaying building. With her nerves already on edge, Streak must confront demons both real and imagined as she struggles to keep a grip on her sanity.”
Box Art:
In More Detail (no major spoilers)
No major spoilers here, but film structure and plot is analysed in detail. If in doubt, just watch the film.
This film could have been so much better if only there had been more correlation between certain events. Instead, it feels like a horror tale for beginners. Something to prepare the bowels for a real horror romp like ‘Scream’ (1996) or ‘Friday the 13th’ (1980).
‘The Abandoned’ is a good movie with decent replay value, entirely due to the casting. If not for the ending, the story would be average at best and terrible with lessor actors. The cast consists of 2 people, with a couple of extras dropping by for a few minutes of screen time.
Louisa Krause headlines, for whom I’m sorry to say I have never heard of as she’s a damn good actress. Her co-star is Jason Patric, who I remember from ‘Speed 2: Cruise Control’ (1997). Don’t hold that against him. The other characters are a homeless guy and boss of a security company, who are also competent in their brief appearances.
Krause plays Julia, more commonly known as Streak. It’s not related to any obvious physical attributes. I guess she enjoys getting naked at sporting events? Which would explain how she lost her daughter and is starting her new career as a late night security guard.
Cooper, played by Jason Patric, is a bitter security guard tasked with mentoring Streak. The pair don’t instantly hit it off, for reasons which would be spoilers! They don’t exactly become friends by the end but there is something… cough.
‘The Abandoned’ and ‘Confined’ both accurately describe this movie. It’s centered around an abandoned apartment building, within which Cooper and Streak are confined. Bit of a stretch. Some spookiness is provided by means of a locked room where abandoned spirits are confined. Better. There is also a third meaning, but that’s another spoiler.
It doesn’t take long for the horror to begin and it’s not a jump scare! No, that’s around 2 minutes later. At which point I paused with a sigh so loud that the director, wherever they are, jumped more than I did. My patience ran out after counting the 4th deafening annoyance. There were plenty more. It’s infuriating to be dragged out of the immersion by an infantile scare tactic. A movie doesn’t have to make you jump to be scary.
Our first dose of real scare is courtesy of Streak being trapped in the dark, paralysed with fear (cough) and hearing whispers all around. It is unsettling. The scene is acted fantastically and sets up possible evil intentions with Cooper. Perfect horror moment.
2 minutes later, Streak is walking down a reasonably well lit corridor, looks in some glass and JUMP SCARE! There’s a similar sort of girl looking back, only with different hair and a bit beaten up. It’s not Streak and she’s never seen again. What was the point in it? There’s going to be a lot to get through.
The rest of the film plays out well, though is presented in such a way that it feels like just another bottom shelf horror flick. As we delve deeper in to the movie, Streak and Cooper venture deeper in to the building. This leads to an increase in disturbances but not horror. Nothing tops Streak’s first isolation scare. Which would be fine if the story was complex enough to carry the movie. It’s not.
Streak and Cooper investigate the building. There are spirits and a possible murderer. Cameras flicker. Ominous shadows phase in and out. Standard horror tropes. The story takes place over the course of 1 night, leaving little room for character development; people can’t change who they are over a few hours in a plausible manner. These are the characters we have, they’re not going to change much which means the actors need to hit the ground running. Which they do, admirably.
There are some puzzling elements thrown in to get you thinking. However, the majority of these elements only appear within a few minutes of the end. So it’s more of an “oh” moment rather than “wow, that’s deep”.
The sudden character developments and realisations felt painfully forced. I can only attribute this to to an inexperienced director. A good director who was possibly making their first horror? We’ve all got to start somewhere. Many more twists were required to make an ending have the impact which was obviously intended.
It was a conundrum as to whether ‘The Abandoned’ should be rated a good movie or not. After the shock value wears off, it feels underwhelming. A second viewing adds a little more depth for those with vivid imaginations, but also raises a lot more questions. Many, many more.
I want to like this movie a lot more than I do. It’s not something I would watch every month, more like once or twice a year. If it’s something I would watch again then that’s conclusive; it’s a good movie. Not great.
Jump scares and gratuitous nudity in movies make me both sad and keyboard biting angry. ‘The Abandoned’ has both, though the nudity doesn’t reveal anything naughty and is only present for a few seconds. It’s hard to find a movie which doesn’t feature any these days.
Why was it necessary to see Streak changing in to her uniform? At least the bra was kept on and they used an above the waist shot. She’s got a fantastic figure and a perfect face, but have some dignity. Sell yourself as an actress, not a whore. Cinema was infinitely better when zero nudity was allowed. Story over sleaze.
If you’ve seen the film, feel free to hit up the spoilers below and point out anything I missed. If not, watch the movie first. Everything below this will ruin ‘The Abandoned’.
Don’t Read This Section!
I’m not covering the entire movie and taking away potential earnings. This is an area for parts of the review which may ruin the viewing experience, not for disclosing every plot point.
For the Slow People
I shouldn’t have to point this out but, while researching the movie name, I stumbled across a forum of exceptionally low IQ’s asking what the ending was all about. I should be surprised by how dumb people are. Never am.
The movie was a dream. Streak was one of the kids kept in the dream basement, or real world care centre, that drank bad water. It put her in a coma, in which she’s spent the last two decades crafting a prison of fictional misery for herself.
Perspective and Why Was Life Support Terminated
I feel the story could have been better if told purely from Streaks perspective. This would be another clue that we were part of a dream. Most of us dream in first person. Not everyone, it depends on the individual. Most third person dreamers have a truck load of psychological issues. It’s a good first date question. Stay away from third persons’s’s’s.
Being told from a third person perspective, covering multiple characters, the movie feels like a narration of events. Therefor it’s a fictional story being told, relative to the movie, as a person would only have their knowledge of what transpired. Streak wouldn’t know homeless Jim pilled-up and took off after her with a knife. Only a narrator would know that.
It doesn’t fit with the twist that we’re in Streaks imagination. Unless she has a serious mental problems and dreams in the third person. In reality she was housed in an institution for deformed and mentally ill children. She could have been both.
Was everything an unconscious dream or was Streak consciously playing out these events to stay sane? At the end we discover homeless Jim was a patient at the hospital. The security manager was a doctor at the hospital. All these people woven in to Streaks narrative confirms she’s conscious of her surroundings. They aren’t simply names, they look identical to the current day. So she’s conscious and paralysed.
As Streak’s life support is taken offline, we see her eyes are open with a tear streaming down her face. This is not unusual for coma patients. However, it proves there is brain activity. Additional confirmation comes from the character appearances assigned in the dream; reiterating they all look identical between the dream and reality. Not how they looked when she was a child, how they look now. Streak was therefor conscious and aware of her surroundings. Or that was bad storytelling?
Life support is traditionally only terminated when there’s no hope for recovery. That could be no brain activity or deterioration of organs to the point where a person is suffering. We know there’s brain activity, so the dirty water must have destroyed her insides. Over 20 years. That’s some dirty water.
My point is that to predict the ending of a film, which is the key to any good twist oriented story, viewers need to be fed subtle hints throughout. The best clue would have been to make the story solely from Streak’s perspective. There would be no rationale behind anyone else’s actions or moods. It adds suspense and fear. Instead we got jump scares.
Turning off the life support while she clearly had brain activity is quite callous. She’s conscious as the ventilator stops, unable to communicate, slowly asphyxiating. It takes 3 to 7 minutes to die from lack of oxygen. This poor girl was deformed as a child, locked in a torturous care facility, tried to escape, drank some water which put her in a coma and spent most of her life paralysed in a hospital. Living every day in agony, for decades, as her body slowly shut down. Assuming organ deterioration was the reason for terminating life support.
A human would administer an opiate overdose before turning off the machines, providing peace for those final few minutes of life. Rather than simply turning off the ventilator for a person who’s paralysed and conscious.
Cooper’s Daughter
Streak spies a picture which turns out to be Cooper’s daughter. I’m pretty sure the girl in this picture is the same actress who, in the final scenes, plays a med student.
In reality, Streak is Cooper’s daughter. Perhaps she pictured herself in this elevated social hierarchy role as a way to impress her father? Or maybe this young lady is the one of the few contacts Streak has in the hospital to imagine herself as? Cooper could have mentioned to this trainee doctor that he hoped Streak would grow up to be like her someday, triggering the connection?
There would be minimal cost in obtaining a random picture or non-speaking extra for the final scene. So I figure there is meant to be a connection here.
Streak’s Daughter
After seeing Cooper’s daughter, Streak shows him a picture of hers. Obviously she doesn’t have one and we’re cleverly not shown the picture. However, Cooper makes an odd face upon seeing the picture. A tad strange, though I don’t think there’s anything to dissect there. They were uncomfortably bonding and Cooper was unsure how to politely react while keeping her distanced.
As Streak dies in the real world, we’re led around various objects in the hospital room. One shot is of a doll sporting the name ‘Clara’. The same doll Streak found in the dream basement and the name of her fictional daughter.
The Building and Streaks Illness?
The building being guarded was described as an abandoned apartment complex. It’s a little grandiose for such a function, but plausible. More so if the story were set in the 1920’s. With modern cars and technology featured, it’s clear the setting is around 2015; the year the film was made.
Let’s insult the adorable Louisa Krause for a second and say she’s 30 years old, at most! Meaning the events which led to Streaks injury happened in the early 1990’s. The apartment building could have been constructed in the 1920’s and well maintained. Architecture can be explained away.
Streak was injured as a child at a detestable hospital for the deformed and mentally ill. Not an apartment complex. In both the dream and reality, Cooper worked as a security guard. Could it be he worked at this building and described the interior to Streak? Or it was an apartment she grew up in before being transferred to the inappropriately designated care centre?
Trying to determine what the building represents in Streak’s dream is tricky. It seems to contradict itself in relation to anything in the real world. I think the intention was the building to be Streak’s hospital room and the basement to be her memories?
It’s only after Streak first reached the basement that she looked up a documentary of her old asylum. Is she starting to remember? The spirits were confined to the basement, their real world counterparts presumably long since dead and living only in her imagination.
The building being her room makes a little less sense due to homeless Jim. He wants to enter, Cooper is against the idea, Streak is for it. A father trying to protect his incapacitated daughter makes sense. As to does Streak wanting Jim to enter the room for company when her father isn’t there. What doesn’t make sense is why Jim enters the basement, her memories, gets attacked by spirits and dies.
I’m thinking the building was her body. Maybe Streak had limited brain activity throughout her coma and her impending death triggered an awakening. Therefor entering the building was her mentally waking up, facing her demons. That explains her taxi ride to the building and running out at the end. Sort of.
Everything makes sense on the surface and it’s a good film. However, the narrative falls apart on subsequent viewings where you’ll be looking to connect events. The more you interrogate the structure, the less sense everything makes. It’s criminally unfortunate that there wasn’t more complexity in the movies design phase.
Opening
I don’t understand the relevance of the opening taxi ride. Perhaps there was no meaning to it. Streaks conversation with the driver didn’t go anywhere and crazy homeless Jim seemed equally irrelevant. Although he does appear at the end as a patient in the hospital.
Perhaps Streak was transferred to the building/hospital room and the taxi ride symbolises this? She could have met Jim outside her room during the transfer. Why was she transferred if comatose? Her life support could have been turned off at the previous residence. Unless she was being cared for at home and transferred to the hospital for her life to end?
Then explain this line by the overseeing doctor at the end:
“This patient has been with us since she was a child“
Or this quote from the security company manager; a senior physician in real world. While leading Streak around the dream building he says this, pertaining to the original inhabitants of the building, which implies it is the hospital:
“Providing everything you need for a comfortable life. You’d never have to leave”
Cooper and His Daughter
It doesn’t take much of a Columbo to connect the 2 chairs; Cooper’s wheelchair in the dream and the static chair he occupies at Streaks bedside in the real world. To me, this implies some level of guilt on Streak’s behalf; feeling as though she’s crippled her father. When in reality it’s likely Cooper who feels guilty for Streaks circumstances.
We don’t get to spend any time with Cooper in the real world, but it’s likely his mood is similar to that of the dream. Streak was placed in a vile care facility as a child. She appears mentally coherent, so it’s safe to to assume it was due to her deformity. He could have abandoned his daughter due to the deformity or financial limitations. The reason doesn’t matter.
Cooper abandoned his daughter, she tried to escape and her punishment led to a permanent coma. That must have destroyed him to the point where he now spends as much time as he can with her. Streak may have picked up on this then woven his misery and anger in to her dream. She’s not punishing him, it’s the only version of her father she knows.
An odd conversion takes place in the control room when Streak and Cooper first meet. She asks what his story is. Cooper jabs back with:
“…I’m sick and tired of Dixon wheeling in some local community college brat and expecting me to entertain them all night”
Does he hate spending all his time at her bedside or is this what she believes he thinks?
There’s an interesting moment where Cooper rummages through Streaks bag in the dream. She snatches it back and angrily yells “Don’t touch my stuff”. Is she possessive and annoyed by people touching stuff in her hospital room?
Cooper tries to bond with Streak in the dream by microwaving her dinner. To which she remarks:
“This looks like hospital food”
Hint, hint.
Dream Cooper had a seemingly pointless death; Streak imagined her daughter drowning in the same water well that crippled her, jumps in, Cooper dives in to save Streak, she escapes while Cooper is pulled down by water spirits to his death. Did the writers forget Cooper was paralysed? Maybe they filmed the last scene first and wrote the wheelchair in later?
I say ‘seemingly’ pointless death as I didn’t immediate realise a connection to anything in the real world. Streak is the one dying. So why did Jim and Cooper have to die? If we examine the order of their deaths, then things clear up a little. It could be Streak letting go of them as she accepts death in the real world.
Jim, sat outside her room, could have been the first to say good bye. Cooper was at her bedside the entire time and would have been the last. The method by which Jim was dispatched doesn’t correlate to anything, however Cooper died in the same water that ultimately killed his daughter.
For anyone who missed it at the end, Cooper is referred to as “Mr Streak”. Really hammering home the obvious.
Homeless Guy
This character makes less sense than why humanity can no longer go “back” to the moon.
If the film were a traditional story and not a dream, I could understand Jim; just a homeless guy with a mental disorder. In the context of Streaks dream, what the Nicolas Cage were the writers thinking?
We first meet Jim in the opening taxi sequence. He bangs on the window and spouts craziness. Understandable. If you’re crazy. Later he tries to enter the apartments, which likely represents Streaks room or psyche. She lets him inside despite Cooper’s protests.
It makes sense Cooper wants to protect his real world paralysed daughter and keep Jim at a distance. If Streak were scared of Jim, why would she let him in to her room? Maybe the taxi encounter was merely an initial shock and she’s not scared. That makes sense. Jim may have been one of the very few people in Streaks life besides Cooper and she didn’t want to be alone. Everything can be made sense of up to this point.
Although, Jim’s dog is an odd addition. Not to be dogist, but it had no place in the story. Homeless people are often depicted as dog owners because stereotypes are reality. I guess sometimes a dog is just a dog… in a traditional story. Such an element in films with twists or dreams, should be incorporated with a deeper significance.
As far as I could figure out, the dog is a dog. Jim talks to it because? It doesn’t attack Streak in the basement because? It leads Streak around because? It doesn’t matter.
The next major interaction with Jim comes after Streak enters the basement. We’re shown Jim rambling at his dog, brandishing a hunting knife off of which he ingests pills. I believe there’s a subtle hint that he’s batshit crazy. Jim says something to the effect of “it’s time” and heads to the basement, knife in hand. How does he know Streak is there? The implication is he’s out to harm her, but why? If the basement is her memories and? I’m starting to lose it!
The last time we see dream Jim is in the basement being murdered by ghosts, who smash his head against a porcelain sink. Nice quick death. However, real world Jim is fine. Well he’s in a hospital so can’t be doing too good, but he’s not dead! He’s sitting outside Streaks room eating dinner.
Why was Jim in the dream as a villain and why did he have to die? Maybe real world Cooper was telling Streaks story to Jim and she wanted him dead after learning her story? For some reason?
Maybe Jim was someone Cooper encountered in his real world security job. Something he told a comatose Streak and she incorporated it in to her dream?
Bad Water
What is it? If we’re to take the story as gospel, then some kids were locked in a room and drank bad water. Bad may be an understatement as it put Streak in a permanent coma and killed the others (I think).
There is a condition called ‘hyperhydration’ or ‘water toxemia’, triggered by consuming too much water. Yes, that is a thing. I frequently raise it with office whores who chug a liter water bottle every half hour. No one ever listens to people smarter than them.
In a flashback we see Streak frantically drinking out of a makeshift well in which the bad water flowed in to. Bad water or too much water?
Other Interesting Things
This write-up has gone on far too long. Instead of burning out my keyboard and readers sanity, I’ll use this section to write up some of the more coherent notes I made along the way…
The visuals were very dark. Streak appeared quite adverse to the dark. Might be the child in her never being able to mentally develop or being trapped in the coma? If she’s so scared of the dark then why does she keep going in to dark areas?
Why was Streak so adamant on closing the door so the kids can’t escape the basement? The care facility was for the mentally and physically disabled. It could be she was simply scared of them in the real world as a child?
Security manager introduces Streak to Cooper as “This is Dennis Cooper, he’s been here since… day 1”. Deep, maaaaaaan!
When in the control room, Streak always sits to the right of Cooper. I wonder if that was intentional as it’s the same position they occupy in the hospital. Perhaps because Cooper doesn’t want to look at the disfigured part of her face?
Was there any significance to the number ‘441-437-852’ Streak announced while reading building schematics? Seemed like a wasted opportunity. It could have been her room number, the time machines were to be switched off, her fathers phone number or GPS coordinates.
Upon exiting the taxi and seeing the building for the first time, there’s a sign indicating wheelchair access to the rear. It seemed purposefully framed. How is that relevant to Streak? She was in bed all along and her father was in the wheelchair, at least in her dream. Maybe there’s something on the editing room floor? Maybe it was to get you looking around the control room the hidden wheelchair, some subconscious hint as to what’s coming?
After Streak lets Jim in to the building, Cooper returns to the control room for beer and long-haired Canadian rock. Is there any meaning to the song he plays:
Streak finds Jim’s corpse and breaks down. A spirit then appears, she takes its hand and is led deeper in to the basement. The next scene shows her still being led with arm outstretched, but there’s no spirit. She’s being led by no one.
This is a dream. It’s irrelevant that she’s being led by a nonexistent spirit because none of it is real. This was a retarded red-herring.I guess the final basement scene, where spirits are throwing around objects, is meant to represent the chaos of her life?
There was a scene where Streak was locked in the basement, banging on the cellar door yelling “please let me out”. Is that her begging to die, to not face the reality of what happened to her or both?
We finally see a spirit of young Streak with a deformed face. Older Streak comforts her with “It’s not your fault” and “I love you just the way you are”. Is that her echoing the words of her father or things she wish he had said?
“I’m gonna go now OK” - …OK?
The End - A Good Surprising Disappointment
I liked the ending and have covered it extensively already. It was an ironically happy surprise, though lacking in execution of twists with key plot points not converging adequately.
The majority of people who watch movies and write reviews, specifically YouTube reviews, are dumb fucks. No one ever lost money underestimating idiots but, for long term success, it pays to aim for a higher intelligence audience.
I understand what the intention was with ‘The Abandoned’. The filmmakers failed. Not in making a good movie, but making a career defining movie.
