In recent years there has been something that has been conspicuously absent from the Hollywood horror factory. That missing element is genuine creepiness. Most of the horror films that reach our screens fall into one of two categories. First are the sanitized PG-13 rated affairs that survive on jump scares; the others fall into the so-called area of "torture porn" along the lines of Saw. It is that which makes this movie stand out — it is genuinely creepy, it makes you wonder what exactly is going to happen next, and even though I haven't completely pieced the ending together, The Abandoned successfully sidesteps the current penchant for torture and over-reliance on jumps to create its atmosphere of dread.

The Abandoned is a haunted house story at its heart, and it wastes no time getting down to telling its tale of a lifelong fate that is about to be set right. It begins its story 40 years ago somewhere in Russia. A beat up old truck arrives at a small farmhouse. The family patriarch approaches the truck, clutching a shotgun, unsure of who is inside, and dreading the worst.

He opens the door to reveal a woman, bloody and near death, with a pair of babies on the seat next to her. Fast forward to the present day. We are introduced to Marie, am American film producer who has spent her life attempting to track down her roots, as she had been adopted as a young girl. Her search leads her to Russia, where we are left to make the simple connection that she was one of the babies in the opening scene.

Her search led her to Russia, where she was born and her mother died. Her mother's death has left her the heir to her home and surrounding land deep in the forest. This is where her journey begins; the closer she gets to her ancestral home, the harder the journey gets as no one seems to want to go there, believing that it is haunted. If only they knew how close they were to the truth.

I could go on about the plot, but what fun would that be for you? This is a movie that gradually reveals itself as it moves along toward the big finish. Along the way, you are sucked into her world, trapped within the house with a secret.

The story concerns her past and has everything to do with that night forty years earlier. Something happened that night, and something that was supposed to happen didn't. For the next forty years, Marie is drawn to her past like a moth to a flame. Fate is a funny thing; you may be able to momentarily evade it, but it has a nasty habit of coming back around to complete its unfinished business. This business has patiently waited four decades for the opportunity to bring the circle to a close. With the return of Marie, and her reunion with brother Nikolai, the horrible events of that night so long ago are about to be played out in the endgame that was so rudely aborted.