Originally released last November as part of Lionsgate and After Dark's one-weekend-only "film festival," Nacho Cerda's The Abandoned re-appears this weekend in about 1,000 multiplexes. Despite the fact that the film played at the Toronto International Film Festival, it arrives in American theaters without the benefit of press screenings, which kind of makes one wonder why Lionsgate even bothered to strike a thousand prints of the thing. (By my estimation, the After Dark flick that stood the best chance at box office success was Mike Mendez' The Gravedancers, but I can only assume the LG folks know what they're doing – or perhaps they were contractually required to give this thing a theatrical release.) Either way, the movie's sure to die a quick and unnoticed death at the box office – not because it's a terrible little ghost story (although it sure ain't great) but because it's dry, redundant and entirely bereft of cinematically salable components.

Anastasia Hille stars as Marie, a 40-some year-old woman who arrives in Russia to take ownership of a ramshackle old property that's been abandoned for about four decades. She hitches a ride with a grumpy driver, arrives at the outrageously remote location ... and then wanders around the area for about 25 minutes. Then up pops a stranger called Nikolai (Karel Roden) who claims to be her long-lost brother, and together the pair ... wander through the house for about 25 minutes. Through the magic of sketchy prologues, evasive dialogue and the always-reliable flashback gallery, we learn that Marie and Nikolai may have been orphaned infants who were taken in by a loony woman and her monster of a husband. Or maybe not. Maybe Marie and Nikolai are just ghosts trapped in an alternate reality or...

Maybe because I grew up watching way too many horror movies, I tend to be pretty critical. When it comes to horror I tend to lapse into a "been there, done that" state of mind. My misspent youth in the eighties was during the glory days of the holy trinity of horror franchises (Krueger, Voorhees and Myers), plus my friends and I managed to work our way through every horror movie that would show up at the local Blockbuster.

Usually most of your low profile horror flicks head straight to video, but sometimes movies manage to create enough buzz to help ease the transition from a late night guilty pleasure to big screen debut. IGN has a first look at the trailer for the new horror flick The Abandoned. The film was a part of the recent After Dark Horrorfest and was directed by Nacho Cerdà. The story centers on a woman who is looking for her parents and is brought to the spot of her mother's murder -- and in true haunted house fashion -- the house has plans of its own. The trailer looks promising, not groundbreaking mind you, but it would seem there's some scares to be had. Even the poster is kind of spooky, although porcelain dolls have always creeped me out, so it might just be me. The Abandoned opens February 23.