The existence of ghost hunting TV shows has had a negative impact on horror cinema. There are now dozens of films that use these shows as a jumping off point, the ready-made milieu perfect for lazy filmmakers who don’t really want to exert effort in putting together an interesting scenario for their characters. The latest example of this dreary trend is Haunting of Cellblock 11. Like every other film of its ilk, it bores as it runs through the shopping list of tropes. But it takes the offense much further by taking so much longer to get there.
The name of the show in this movie is Ghost Sightings. We start with the team at some pizza parlor, interviewing the owner about the paranormal activity in the place. They spend the night there, and are disappointed with the footage that they get. After a tense meeting with a network executive about their ratings, the team heads out to an abandoned prison. They are warned by several people not to stay in the prison, but desperate for real ghostly activity, the team heads in anyway. Disaster eventually strikes, and the team discovers the dark history of the place as they try to stay alive.
This particular subset of the genre is pretty dire as a whole, with the same ideas being played out by an interchangeable set of actors. But this movie lowers the bar even further. For one thing, it takes forever to get to the meat of the plot. Rather than dive straight into its narrative situation, it wastes nearly half of its time outside of the prison, dealing with things that don’t really matter. Did we really need to see them in a meeting with a network executive? Does the movie really gain anything from those bland office interiors?
The horrors only really start about halfway through the movie. By that time, any reasonable person’s patience would have already worn out. But even if this film were viewed by a living Buddha, a person with a limitless well of patience and forgiveness, the wait just isn’t worth it. The movie has nothing interesting to offer genre fans. It’s just a succession of dimly lit scenes with the occasional poorly rendered ghost being showing up in the shadows.
There just isn’t much to this. It would have helped if the characters had anything at all to do. The film doesn’t tell much of a story once it’s inside the prison. The characters are basically just stuck there, and they don’t have clear goals in mind to better their situation. When the solutions eventually come, it is through no effort of their own. The movie just doesn’t provide any reasons at all to care about these people. The acting is not very good, but the actors were doomed from the start. They seem to be reasonably talented people, but the material just isn’t there.
Haunting of Cellblock 11 is filler. It’s all filler. There will always be demand for horror movies. It is a genre of film with simple cross-cultural appeal, making it stupidly easy to market. If you put the word “haunting” in the title, it immediately tells people what kind of movie they’re going to get. But there is clearly no passion at all put into the construction of this film. It takes the most boring, most tired modern horror scenario and inexplicably makes it less interesting. It meanders through a nothing plot, knowing that the word “haunting” alone will draw in the easy crowds.
My Rating:
