HAUNTER is a pretty dreadful teen horror film, which is a pity given that the guy who directed it is none other than Vincenzo Natali, who of course made the wonderful CUBE. He actually references CUBE throughout this movie in terms of some of the plot twists and single-setting location, although this is a very different kind of product.

HAUNTER is your usual haunted house horror with a twist: the main character is stuck in a time loop that sees her going through events time and again. THE OTHERS is a definite inspiration here, but it doesn't count for much when the film is so murky and unappealing. I have no idea who Abigail Breslin is or why she was cast in the central role, but she's completely out of her depth and impossible to take seriously as the lead.

There's one cool horror scene set around a family dinner table which is absolutely spoilt by Breslin's fake and cheesy reaction shots, no matter how cool the effects are otherwise. And the film as a whole feels slow and unfocused, another one influenced by the success of TV'S American Horror Story. Stephen McHattie (A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE) makes a good villain but even he is underutilised here.

It's sometime in the 80s. Lisa (Abigail Breslin) turns 16 tomorrow. Only she's been repeating the same day over and over again. Neither her parents or her little brother remember. Yet everyday is the same. That is until somethings start changing.

It's Groundhog Day and a horror movie ... sort of. If it's a horror, there isn't anything scary in it. It is head scratching. Lisa reveals the premise very early on, and then it slowly devolves into something even weirder. There has to be a way to get to a scarier situation. But there is no consequences to being caught. Her situation can't actually be any worse. Certainly the normal fear of death do not apply. And that's what this movie needs. It needs stakes for Lisa to fight for. It needs something that she could lose if she fails. There isn't anything like that here. At least, director Vincenzo Natali didn't set up anything like that.

In 1985, on the eve of her sixteenth birthday, Lisa (Abigail Breslin) discovers that she is stuck in time, living the same day over and over with her parents Bruce (Peter Outerbridge) and Carol (Michelle Nolden) and her little brother Robbie (Peter DaCunha). Soon she learns that they are dead and trapped on the day that they were murdered but she finds that she can contact other people. Out of the blue, a stranger (Stephen McHattie) comes to her house telling that he is going to fix the telephone line but indeed to threaten her to stop the contacts. Lisa finds that she is contacting victims of the killer in different timelines including the future, and the killer's name is Oscar. Will be possible to Lisa to stop the evil Oscar?

"Haunter" is an intriguing ghost story with a promising idea of an evil spirit, but with a deceptive conclusion. The story is a combination of "The Others" with "Groundhog Day" and "The Twilight Zone", with good performance of Abigail Breslin. But the corny conclusion could be better. My vote is six.

Title (Brazil): Not Available