Spirit Hunter: La Llorona (2004) Online

HAUNTED FROM WITHIN is an incredibly poor "straight-to-DVD" movie about the urban legend of La Llorona. As I shall demonstrate, the producers of this travesty are merely using this interesting urban legend to con viewers into buying the DVD.

First, I'll say that the other reviewer should not be taken seriously. If he seriously thinks this movie is better than ROSEMARY'S BABY then his experience of horror movies must be even more limited than his use of vocabulary. Even the most ardent critics of ROSEMARY'S BABY can identify at least one positive element. The same cannot be said about HAUNTED FROM WITHIN.

Aside from the fact that a woman commits suicide after drowning her children and then comes back as a ghost, the movie bears no relation to the legend of La Llorona. The movie plays out as a series of loosely connected scenes with many revolving around an investigator with psychic abilities.

I can say without hesitation that this is one of the most dysfunctional movies I have ever seen. There is no direction for the story at all, absolutely no narrative whatsoever. This is far worse than anything churned out by Ulli Lommel or Uwe Boll. The former of these directors is notorious for producing movies with long drawn-out murder scenes that are repeated over and over again in an almost identical fashion to the first. But even he can manage to come up with something resembling a beginning and something resembling an end even when the middle is dysfunctional.

The direction is as poor as can be with a complete lack of suspense, scares or tension. Even the drama elements are hopelessly handled and represent something more boring than even the worst soap opera you may have had the misfortune of enduring. And no, there are no laughs to be found here. Even the MST3K guys couldn't make this funny!

The acting across the board is absolutely abysmal with no one actor involved managing to show even the slightest potential of a successful acting career.

Many of the individual scenes are incredibly long, with long pauses between dialogue exchanges. I'm not exaggerating!

HAUNTED FROM WITHIN is not even one of the "so-bad-it's-good" movies like CAMP BLOOD or THE NAIL GUN MASSACRE. If you want to laugh hysterically, watch those movies. If you want to see a proper horror movie about ghosts watch THE LEGEND OF HELL HOUSE, THE CHANGELING, RINGU, THE EYE (original Korean version), THE GRUDGE, ONE MISSED CALL or PHONE. All of these movies are a million times better than the travesty known as HAUNTED FROM WITHIN.

I advise anyone who has had the good fortune of avoiding seeing HAUNTED FROM WITHIN to keep up the good work! Just forget this movie exists. Don't spare a thought for it!

If I could give a negative number as a vote instead of "one," I would definitely do it.

"Haunted from Within" has problems on all fronts: The story is extremely weak. Detective Lupino actually tells the doctor that he'll be back in a minute. There is a slight fade out as Lupino exits, then a fade in as he returns - and that need for the character to leave is never addressed and serves absolutely no purpose. Furthermore, the movie is loaded with "talking heads" and too many people on phones, which is absolutely ridiculous. The directing is god awful, the acting is atrocious, the editing is third rate, the music is abysmal, the cinematography is shameful and the lighting is horrendous.

I have only seen one low budget movie worse than this ("Gone the Way of Flesh"). Writer/Director/Producer Cruz should be embarrassed.

I wouldn't even use the DVD as a coaster for drinks.

So, I bought this as a piggy back to another terrible movie, The Haunting at Marston Manor. Upon seeing that, I was glad to see that there was a movie that could possibly be better than that. Boy, was I disappointed. I make movies with a friend, and they're not the best. We're amateurs and we know it. We know that they could be a lot better. But at least ours have SUBSTANCE. It was so bad, that about four times during the course my family had agreed to turn it off, but decided to give it more time to redeem itself. It did not. The graphics and "animation" (if you can even call it that.) literally made me laugh so hard I almost wet myself (especially the news program. A photo from the frigging' scene in the movie? What, you couldn't even take the time to take another picture of him? No, I guess they just couldn't spare to spend anymore of their $200 budget, huh?)

Just, unless you want your IQ to be lowered fifty points, avoid this movie at all costs. It's not worth it!

A beautiful woman drowns her two children and then commits suicide. Her curse spreads throughout a small Arizona town by possessing young mothers. It's up to intrepid psychic investigator Dr. David Stern (a hopelessly bland and underwhelming portrayal by David Patrick Stern) and helpful psychic reader Carmelita (stiffly played by the pretty, but blah Maria Esquivel) to stop said curse before it's too late. Sound good? Well, it just ain't. Writer/director Jose L. Cruz relates the dull, meandering, and uneventful narrative at an excruciatingly sluggish pace, generates absolutely zero tension or spooky atmosphere, and goes way overboard on a numbing and energy-sapping surplus of terrible drippy dialogue. The cruddy (far from) special effects, a limp conclusion, a bathtub-set murder set piece that's too poorly staged to have any real impact, and the across the board wooden acting from a lame no-name cast add further abject insult to already appalling injury. Worst of all, this clunker takes the fairly novel and interesting urban legend of La Llorona and does simply nothing remotely scary or inspired with it. Instead this flick just lies flat-out dead on your TV screen for what seems like the longest, most boring, and dissatisfying 87 minutes in one of the inner circles of bad cinema hell. A real clunker.

Like most horror movie covers, it drew me in i was like ooh this looks good. Its an okay story that if in the hands of a modern director would have been good. It won't make you spill popcorn all over the floor, but it won't put you to sleep either. towards the end it gets really good, but the middle will make you a little impatient. It was better than Dream Home and Rosemary's Baby. It didn't quite spook me like The Blair Witch Project. Judge for yourself because I am one of those people who prefer a good can't get it off my mind scare that makes me turn all the lights on in the house. That and I just don't take to well to the oldie Scary movies and other related scare tactics. I'm not saying don't watch it. I'm saying judge for yourself.