The Abandoned is about a young woman trying to get her life back in order. She takes a job as a security guard during the graveyard shift. It’s her first night working in this beautiful old building. But, the more she learns to about the buildings dark past the further down the rabbit’s hole she goes.

Director: Eytan Rockaway

Writers: Ido Fluk

Stars: Jason Patric, Louisa Krause, Mark Margolis, Ezra Knight

Let me start by saying that I saw an excerpt from a review of The Abandoned by the Roger Ebert website and all I can say is that the person who wrote what I read was full of shit. In a nutshell, they loved the first hour of the movie and thought the ending ruined it. Now being someone that is constantly shitting on movies for having shitting endings, I could understand their feelings. However, as a person that has seen this movie, I know for a fact that the ending works well. I didn’t read the interview, I just read description for the article that turned up doing a Google search for “The Abandoned 2015”

Okay, let’s talk about what this movie has going for it. The acting, great. The story, interesting. The setting, perfect. The atmosphere, creepy and believable. The screenplay, well written. The ending, thought provoking and I didn’t see it coming. No one really does anything too stupid. At least nothing stands out that I recall. I try to give a movie at least a few days after seeing it before I review it. I want it to sink in. If I still feel strongly about it after a few days, then it’s a good movie. This is a good movie. It’s not the scariest movie I’ve ever seen but it’s got a solid creepy atmosphere, a couple of good scares, and above all it’s a good ghost story. It’s because it’s a mystery. It’s not just about creepy scary shit, it’s about why the creepy, scary shit is happening.

Louisa Krause is completely believable in her role as Streak. She’s strong yet fragile and stands up well to Jason Patrick’s character Cooper who is somewhat of a verbal bully at first. He is the other graveyard security guard and has been there from the beginning. He has no desire to get to know the new guard, Streak. Patrick’s character could have easily been simply one dimensional but it wasn’t. Krause’s character could have been annoying and unsympathetic. Both these actors took their well written characters and made them better.

If you’re looking for a solid ghost story with an actual story you’re going to enjoy this. It’s also got a twist at the end. I wish I could tell you more about the ending but I don’t want to ruin it. I think almost anyone that enjoys a good ghost story will like this as well as anyone who likes a good mystery.