User Reviews

If you adore the sound of a baby screaming and crying for 90 minutes straight, you may enjoy this movie. Otherwise skip it because it's painfully slow and dull. Emma Roberts looks pretty as always but there isn't much to work with here. Her co-star is not the best actor either. He tries but seems flat throughout. Sorry but this is just too many problems to recommend this one.

Idk why all the negative reviews. I hate to be "that guy", but I suspect they were mostly men, or women who haven't had children.

The movie is slowly paced, and quiet, but with a creepiness that gets under your skin. The fact that there is a baby involved makes it more terrifying. There are no lame jump scares, so maybe that's why the poor reviews.

The entire film is a powerful metaphor for postpartum depression, and the struggle of a new mother to feel connected to her baby the way everyone told her she would. The ghost story is actually secondary to that fact. But the ghost story, the horrid history of the house, are part of her journey to find herself again.

It's also a powerful metaphor for the way women are often gaslit by male doctors into believing everything is in their head and a pill will fix that. But she refuses, and instead battles the "ghosts in the house" for the life of her son, and in that moment, finds what she has been missing.

Ignore the hate, watch this movie, your skin will crawl, especially if you're a mom.

I love Emma Roberts, but this movie was awful. The story is underdeveloped. Why did her character wear and sleep in the exact same outfit and not shower for a week or more? Was that supposed to depict her decent into madness? Then she would wake up the next day looking normal, but always wearing the same clothes and makeup. Her husband never noticed or helped her shower. Even when she finally took a bath, she put back on the same dress. Why didn't she tell her husband that the neighbor was the little boy and that was his childhood home? What did the ghost Dad do to the kids and his wife? Was the ghost Dad raping his wife? Did he chop them up w an axe? What happened to the ghost kids in the attic and why did nobody else in town know they ever existed or went missing? Why were those windows nailed shut? Did she just imagine all those ghosts or did they just stop haunting her when she finally found love for her baby son? Did she destroy and take the stuff in the house bc she was going crazy or was that the ghost? Besides paper towels w flies on them, what was that under the couch and why did she just leave it there? So she never told the husband about all the ghost, the neighbors secret or the kids in the attic or secret room??? What was the point of showing the son growing up and then suddenly she was changing outfits? Lastly, how were they always cooking meals w only eggs and breast milk in the fridge? What was she surviving off of? None of this story makes sense. It's almost like they edited whole scenes out that would explain these things. As the credits began to roll, I kept saying "what? What happened?"

Not sure why this movie was mind numbing slow, but it was. Get ready for none of this movie to make sense and the rest of the movie to be filled with a screaming bby sound. This movie had 2 good male actors in it so I am not sure why it was so bad! The story was hard to follow and with no one explaining what was going on, you have to make your own conclusions. Was is a story about incest, or abuse, I will never know. Not sure what was in her head and what was irl. Love how she though her finger nails would be strong enough to pull up actual nails. Or how she just left dirty diapers under a sofa like "Oh, someone else will pick those up". I really tried to like this movie but the words annoying and too long come to mind when watching this. One can be easily skip over without missing a thing. They tried to be like that movie "The boy" but failed! That must have been hard to do, because that movie was not great but still better than this one.

To summarize: Postpartum Depression, a screaming baby 80% of the film. (Audience-is-lazily-made-to-think) that unsupportive husband is supportive and concerned for wife and child but gone most of film. Child neglect and probably abuse, turns out all to be okay because encounters with feral child ghosts (wanting to take baby because of abuse) and happy record music justifies everything because well, the mother "didn't mean to" and "hes mine".

Theres so much more thats added and makes no sense to the storyline.

NOOOOOO. NO NO NO.

I really felt whatever they were trying to communicate in Abandoned. I felt the mother's revulsion towards her constantly crying baby, and her subsequent guilt when she tried to bond with him. I think the director (and Emma Roberts) did an excellent job of making the viewer feel her disgust and paranoia. She gets hurt, the baby laughs. She enjoys something, the baby immediately starts screaming. I wanted that baby to go away as much as she did, but also realized how horrible the reality of that would be when the baby almost falls down the stairs, drowns in the bathtub, then gets kidnapped by the inbred creatures.

I don't like the end though. I think it could have been MUCH more appropriate if she had been sitting there with a dead baby when she had her "breakthrough" and made breakfast for her husband, that would have been a much more creepy ending for a horror movie. The saccharine sweet happy ending was a bit jarring, and showing her being pregnant again didn't frighten me, it made me feel sorry for her. I kept thinking, this woman shouldn't be a mother, I truly thought for at least half the movie that was the answer, that it was going to turn around and we'd find out her husband was abusive, he smashed the music box and forced her into this mother role she didn't want.

But nah, that didn't happen, either.

So the movie isn't perfect as a horror film, I can think of at least two more disturbing endings, but I honestly felt frightened in some scenes, and I am not always frightened by horror movies.

Anyone who is planning on making a movie of any kind with a crying baby in it, PLEASE do NOT pick one that sounds as loud and obnoxious and bratty as this kid! MUCH less, make them cry 3/4 of the movie! I can see why this poor mother was psychotic and depressed! Drags a lot and you never really get the full story of what is happening. The ending is even more annoying because you have no clue what actually happened and suddenly the parents are in the same clothes but the kid ages a few years in seconds. I truly hope there is no part 2 with what seems to be led on by the ending. Please make it stop!