Haunter 2013 Canadian supernatural horror film

Haunter is a 2013 Canadian supernatural horror film directed by Vincenzo Natali, written by Brian King, and starring Abigail Breslin. The film premiered at the 2013 South by Southwest Film Festival, and was picked up for U.S. distribution there by IFC Midnight.

Lisa Johnson, the ghost of a teenage girl who becomes aware that she is dead, haunts a house somewhere in northern Ontario. Along with her parents and brother, who are unaware that they are dead, she is stuck on the same day they were murdered in 1985. As she becomes more aware of her circumstances, she realizes that she can make contact with people in other timelines. As she explores this ability, a pale man appears and warns her to stop. Undeterred, Lisa uses personal items from other people killed in the house to make a connection with Olivia, part of a family living in the house in the future who will become the next set of victims.

With the help of Olivia and the spirits of other murdered girls, Lisa is transported into the timelines of other victims and unravels the mystery of the house. She causes her family to come to terms with the knowledge that they are dead, and thus "awakened" they become able to assist her. After her family escapes to the afterlife, Lisa stays behind to stop the murderous evil spirit who haunts the house. With help from the evil spirit's family (the original victims), Lisa overcomes him and rescues another family from suffering the same fate. Thus breaking the cycle of possessions and murder-suicides, Lisa awakes, no longer reliving the same day.

CastAbigail Breslin as Lisa Johnson
Peter Outerbridge as Bruce Johnson
Michelle Nolden as Carol Johnson
Stephen McHattie as Pale Man - Edgar Mullins
David Knoll as Young Edgar
Peter DaCunha as Robert "Robbie" Johnson
Samantha Weinstein as Frances Nichols
Eleanor Zichy as Olivia
David Hewlett as David - Olivia's Father
Sarah Manninen as Olivia's Mother
Martine Campbell as Olivia's Sister
Michelle Coburn as Mary Brooks
Tadhg McMahon as Edgar's Father
Marie Dame as Edgar's Mother

ProductionHaunter was filmed at Toronto and Brantford, Ontario, Canada. Production took 25 days. Natali said that he was drawn to the film because, unlike Splice, which took him twelve years to complete, Haunter only needed to be shot.

ReleaseHaunter premiered at South by Southwest film festival on March 9, 2013, and received a limited US theatrical release on October 18, 2013. It was released on home video on February 11, 2014, and made $129,447 on domestic video sales.

Reception
Rotten Tomatoes, a review aggregator, reports that 53% of 32 surveyed critics gave the film a positive review; the average rating was 5.3/10. Metacritic rated it 49 out 100. Linda Barnard of the Toronto Star rated it 2/4 stars and called the script "ill-focused and juvenile". Joe Leydon of Variety called it "a modestly inventive variation on genre conventions". John DeFore of The Hollywood Reporter wrote that the film is "sufficiently novel to uphold [Natali's] reputation as a filmmaker not content telling conventional fanboy stories."Nicolas Rapold of The New York Times wrote, "the film's frazzled thought experiment becomes an adequate yarn." Annlee Ellingson of the Los Angeles Times wrote that Natali "brings cool visuals and a punk attitude to Brian King's cleverly layered script." Josh Modell of The A.V. Club rated it C and wrote, "The occasionally intriguing, but ultimately middling Haunter is caught in some kind of gauzy haunted-house purgatory between a girl-powered YA story and a ghostly serial-killer mystery."Nav Qateel of Influx Magazine rated it B and called it "better than it perhaps should have been".