THE ABANDONED (2006) (Unearthed Films Blu-ray Review)

THE ABANDONED (2006) 

Label: Unearthed Films 

Region Code: Region-Free

Rating: Unrated 

Duration: 99 Minutes 13 Seconds 

Audio: English/Russian DTS-HD MA 5.1, PCM 2.0 with Optional English Subtitles 

Video: 1080p HD Widescreen (2.39:1) 

Director: Nacho Cerda

Cast: Anastasia Hille, Carlos Reig, Valentin Ganev, Karel Roden

The Abandoned (2006) opens in 1966, somewhere in Russia, with a wounded woman near death driving a truck to an isolated farm with two babies inside. Forty years later, the film American producer Marie Jones (Anastasia Hille, Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again) arrives in Russia to discover more about her mysterious past, having been adopted an an infant she has no recollection of her natural parents, and she has been contacted by a mysterious notary public Andrei Misharin (Valentin Ganev, El Gringo), who tells her that she has inherited the family farm which is located on an isolated river island. She travels to the property and while exploring the dilapidated farmhouse encounters what appears to be a ghoulish doppelganger of herself with milky white eyes. Startled she attempts to flee but falls into the river and is knocked unconscious, waking up back in the house, apparently having been pulled out of the river and saved from drowning by a stranger named Nicolai (Karel Roden, Hellboy). He tells her that he is her twin brother, and that he had also received a call from the notary Misharin telling him about the property. Together the explore the house, now haunted by both her and Nicolai's doppelgangers, discovering that they seemingly cannot escape the island, all the while the house seems to flashback and forth in time, allowing the siblings to bare witness to the tragic events that lead to their orphaning forty years earlier. What we end up with is a eerie old dark house film with abstract elements of a haunting as Marie and Nicolai come to terms with their fates, and the vengeful spirit of their murderous father, punctuated by some m oments of violence and gore. 

The story itself is very plot thin, but drenched in atmosphere and unresolved mystery, the location and set design are terrific, the dilapidated farmhouse is a character unto itself, our doomed duo attempting to navigate the situation and extricate themselves from their seemingly doomed fates, but unable to do so successfully. While the film is short on explanation it does fall into the unsettling and eerie tone of it all quite nicely, with Roden and Hill as the estranged twins reunited by eerie fate doing excellent work bringing their characters life for the audience, as two people caught up in spooky old dark house looking for answers but only finding more questions.

This was Spanish director Nacho Cerda's debut feature film, it was part of the original After Dark Horrorfest in 2006 and was later released in 2007 as part of the Lionsgate 8 Films To Die For DVD series which is where I first discovered it. The story was originally Karim Hussain (cinematographer of Possessor, We Are Still Here, Infinity Pool), with additional writing by Cerda, as well as Richard Stanley (Hardware, Dust Devil), and it combines elements of a stranger in a strange land, the old dark house, and of course ghostly elements and questions of the inescapability of fate, it's got a lot going on and for the most part I found it quite effective, though I felt it sort of loses it's way a bit towards the end. Don;t get me wrong though, I was still hooked, the central performances are strong, especially from Hille, who has a bit of an Elisabeth Moss quality about her, and the look of the film is outstanding, even if the story itself loses cohesion for me there at the end, but still quite a visually striking and engrossing old dark house haunter.

Audio/Video: The Abandoned (2006) arrives on region-free Blu-ray from Unearthed Films in 1080p HD framed in 2.39:1 widescreen. Having first saw this on DVD in 2007 I was blown away with howe terrific it looks on Blu-ray, shot on film it has a fine grain field that is uniform, and depth and clarity are outstanding, close-ups of faces and the dilapidated interiors of the farmhouse revela all sorts of nooks and crannies with wonderful texturing. The sickly pallor of the film translates well with well-saturated colors, the film uses yellow, green and cold blues to establish an eerie tone that looks quite nice in HD. Black levels are deep and inky, the impenetrable shadowy interiors of the farm house impress, with solid shadow detail as they are lit up by flashlight. 

Audio comes by way of English/Russian DTS-HD MA 5.1, PCM 2.0 with optional English subtitles. The tracks are clean and well-balanced with the 5.1 offering some tasty old dark house atmosphere with use of the surrounds. Interesting the Russian dialogue is not translated via English subtitles, which further sells the stranger in a strange land vibe. 

Unearthed Films really pack in the extras with this one, they carry-over all the archival extras from the previous DVD, plus offers hours of new extras by way of new interviews with Nacho Cerdà, Richard Stanley, and Karim Hussain conducted by Zoë Rose Smith, the founder & editor-in-chief of Ghouls Magazine and co-host of the Our Bloody Obsession Podcast, as well as about 30-minutes of  Alternative Sequences, Deleted & Extended Scenes and Outtakes. The disc is buttoned-up with a Photo Gallery; 12-minute of Trailers and a BD-ROM: Storyboard Collection. 

The single-disc release arrives in a standard keepcase with a single-sided sleeve of artwork with the traditional key artwork for the film, plus a slipcover with the same artwork. 

Special Features: 
- NEW! Zoë Rose Smith Interviews Nacho Cerdà (50 min) 
- NEW! Zoë Rose Smith Interviews Richard Stanley (45 min) 
- NEW! Zoë Rose Smith Interviews Karim Hussain (52 min) 
- ‘The Making of ‘The Abandoned’ Featurette (13 min) 
- ‘In the Den of The Abandoned’ Featurette (30 min) 
- ‘Nacho Cerda: Facing Death’ Featurette (28 min) 
- ‘The Little Secrets of Nacho Cerda’ Featurette (14 min) 
- ‘When Buck Meets Cerda: A Dialogue Between Friends’ Featurette (14 min) 
- NEW! Alternative Sequences (11 min) 
- NEW! Deleted & Extended Scenes (6 min) 
- NEW! Outtakes (10 min) 
- Photo Gallery
- Trailers: French Trailer (1:56), French Trailer with English Audio (1:56 seconds), English Trailer (2:26), Spanish Trailer (2:26), German Trailer (2:26)

- BD-ROM: Storyboard Collection

Unearthed Films do excellent work resurrecting Nacho Cerda's After Dark Horrorfest entry The Abandoned in HD, it looks absolutely gorgeous and the hours of extras are terrific as well.

Screenshots from the Unearthed Films Blu-ray: 

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