Haunted (1977) User Reviews

Haunted by Aldo Ray going topless!

[udar55 · 3/10 · 6 August 2009]

In 1865, a young Indian girl (Ann Michelle) is sentenced to death in a small Arizona town after a soldier (Aldo Ray) falsely accuses her of stealing. Fast forward a hundred and eleven years and the town is now a ramshackle old movie studio inhabited solely by two brothers (Jim Negele & Brad Rearden), their blind mother (Virginia Mayo) and crabby Uncle (Ray again). Trouble arrives when Brit actress Jennifer (Michelle again) shows up and she is the Indian girl reincarnated.

Is it possible to title your movie HAUNTED and not have any ghosts in it? This is more boredom beyond than anything else. It really says something for your film when the scariest thing in it is Aldo Ray's hairy back during a lovemaking scene (my eyes!!!). Director Michael DeGaetano previously made the amusingly titled UFO: TARGET EARTH and shows a real fine hand at the nonsensical. There are some bizarre subplots like Ray searching for gold and Ray being the boys real father, both of which are dropped cold. DeGaetano also sets up a senseless bit with a phone booth being installed by a graveyard next to a house so the Indian girl can call Ray from beyond the grave. Huh? Why not just have her call the home phone? The mind numbing finale has our female lead trapped in the phone booth with Ray outside, trying to find a way to get at her. He finally figures out to break the glass. Meanwhile, our hero brothers hang out at a burger joint and don't even show up to save the chick. For Aldo Ray fans (my condolences) only!

She's been through the desert on a horse... and no shirt!

[Coventry · 3/10 · 12 June 2022]

"Haunted" starts with a prologue written on the screen and, immediately after, the same text is processed into a sequence as well. It certainly isn't the biggest blunder you can make, but it does somewhat illustrate the intelligence level of the film. Either you do a written text or you do a sequence, but not both. Then again, the pre-opening credit sequences, taking place during the US Civil War, are undeniably the best parts of the entire film.

A beautiful Indian woman gets falsely accused of witchery by a corrupt priest, and she's sentenced to a very strange and perverse death. The poor girl, named Abanaki, is tied to a horse, stripped naked, and then sent into the dry and hot desert to die. Some say - and I quote the prologue - that her spirit roamed around for more than a hundred years for revenge. And guess what happens a hundred years later!

"Haunted" is also the type of clichéd horror film in which characters reincarnate as exact replicas of their ancestors. The corrupt priest reincarnates as a grumpy ranch owner, and Abanaki returns as a beautiful traveling girl whose car breaks down at that same ranch. This film had the potential to be a simple but effective supernatural horror tale, but writer/director Alessandro De Gaetano stuffs his screenplay with lots of senseless nonsense, dead-end twists, dull sub plots, and insignificant supportive characters. There's a phone booth in the middle of a cemetery, sinister wooden statues without any purpose, an elderly blind lady playing the organ and fantasizing about sex with her deceased husband (while she actually has the plump and hairy Aldo Ray on top of her), and two dorky brothers chasing after the lewd Abanaki-reincarnation.

I can tolerate quite a lot of weirdness, but the complete lack of action and gruesome deaths in "Haunted" is unforgivable. There's one notable highlight, involving spilled petrol and a spark from a light bulb, but it's not enough. De Gaetano put too much time and effort in the dedicated soundtrack, and the casting of Anne Michelle (in a successful attempt to find a girl with perfect breasts).

Aldo Ray and Virginia Mayo go slumming.

[planktonrules · 2/10 · 8 August 2019]

"Haunted" is a crappy, low budget film that, sadly, has the distinction of starring Aldo Ray and VIrginia Mayo--two decent Hollywood stars of the 1950s that were apparently down on their luck and needed work. It's a real shame, as no actors could have made this lousy film watchable.

The story begins with a bizarro 'execution'. A convicted Native American, Abinaki, is stripped naked and made to ride a rorse into the desert to die. It seems like an incredibly uncertain AND gratuitous way to kill her!

The film then jumps to a dying desert town in the present. Instead of showing it in the first scene, one of the characters gives an exposition where he explains that the Indian lady was accused by an evil priest...and she vowed revenge on him and everyone else associated with her death. Additionally, a mentally ill blind woman (Mayo) goes on and on about the death lady....and it's rather embarrassing to watch. Eventually (and it takes a LONG time), bad things start happening...all thanks to a vengeful Abinaki.

This movie had a very low budget and many of the supporting actors didn't seem like actors at all. Their delivery was terrible....though the dialog they were given was awful as well...often coming off as bombastic and self-important. The songs are generally bad as well...with some hilariously bad lyrics.

So is it worth seeing? For most of you, NO!! But, if you like seeing actors committing career suicide as Ray and Mayo do in this one, it's worth a look.

Working the Production

[aftermathsystems · 1/10 · 21 May 2017]

I worked as a wrangler during the old west parts of this production wrangling up to four horses. Aldo Ray was difficult as he was always drunk and production was always waiting for him to show up. The western scenes were filmed at the old Apacheland Movie Studio east of Apache Junction Arizona. Working the set I felt like a high school drama class could have done a better job.

Aldo at his wackiest!

[cfc_can · 23 November 2002]

This film was in most video stores during the 80s but hasn't been seen much in the past few years. Though it's no horror classic, it does have a unique flavor. It was filmed in 1976 but only released 3 years later. It's better than most of the many made-for-video horror fests. Haunted is set in a desert ghost town and features great photography. The storyline is about an attractive female visitor to the town who looks just like a woman who was executed in the same area 100 years ago. Haunted is very low budget. There are only about a dozen people in the cast but the film is still competently made and has some eerie moments. It also has some unusual folk songs (in fact,a soundtrack from this movie was released, how many horror movies can say that?) The film's poster is a bit misleading as it shows a person impaled on the letters in the title. However, the film's body count is very low and the blood and guts is almost non-existent. Not that it matters though as the story will keep viewers hooked. Haunted's chief asset is Aldo Ray. Once upon a time, Ray worked in major Hollywood productions but by this time, he was taking any part that was offered. At the start, Ray's character is nasty. He then gets nastier and nastier while the film goes on. By the end, he is really off the deep end. One may wonder if he is acting or going nuts in real life while the scene is being shot! In any event, Haunted is one of the few obscure horror films that is worth your time!

Take off her clothes!

[Flooopdoodle · 1/10 · 24 April 2018]

This is bad. Really bad. Bad acting, script, sets, everything. It's in English, but its dubbed. Into English. The story is stupid and offensive, the characters laughable. and the acting like the spoken parts of a bad musical. I love movies so bad they're good, but only if they have a sense of humor. This movie has Also Ray and Virginia Mayo instead. And don't forget that when you first see Virgina Mayo she describes her first sexual encounter in a way that will make you not want to have sex. And there's these two guys running around in cut off blue jeans looking for the adult film they're supposed to be in.

"Just turn it around in your mind, and you'll see. See? We're friends already."

So, 1 star as a movie, but 10 stars as something to watch when you're high.

They dared to defy the curse of a hundred years!!

[mwilson1976 · 3/10 · 8 April 2019]

In Arizona during the Civil War, a Native American woman is accused of witchcraft, tied to a horse and left to die in the desert. One hundred years later, the descendants of the woman's accusers start being killed off, and an Englishwoman becomes convinced that she is the reincarnation of a long-dead Indian priestess. This movie was filmed on location in Arizona over a period of 24 days on a budget of $250,000. According to writer-director Michael De Gaetano, budgeting issues necessitated that portions of the script be un-filmed, resulting in "a good deal of the philosophical depth of the film" disappearing. The result is a boring movie with huge gaps in the story, and plenty of historical inaccuracies. This is all topped with some ridiculous performances by a very visibly drunk Aldo Ray and Virginia Mayo' in a non sensical role who chews the scenery and delivers her lines awkwardly. Ann Michelle ( a white British actress) plays the Apache priestess, and sits atop a horse, topless, wearing a black, braided wig. A soundtrack album was released featuring such songs as You Make Me Feel the Music by Carol Douglas, Indian Woman by Billy Vera, A Distant Time (Love Theme from 'Haunted') by Freya Crane, and How Can I Tell Judy by Herbert Oscar Anderson.

STUPID In Capitals

[saint_brett · 1/10 · 25 October 2021]

Here's a movie about a telephone booth in a cemetery. Today's generation probably wouldn't know what a phone booth is?

The start of this movie wouldn't stand a chance in today's sensitive climate. I won't give a detailed description or cancel culture will do to me what they're doing to the naked lady on the horse here.

This is a '76 release according to the start credits. Video cover says '77.

OK? I'm confused already.

At the start some sweaty padre was conducting a sermon in the wild West and now he's a 70's pharmacists?

This mellow harmony music must have been LSD inspired? I bet the soundtrack for this movie shook the richter scale to its core?

Where'd the naked horse lady go?

So a telephone booth is indeed delivered, and installed, to a lifeless graveyard. What's it run on - solar?

Good Lord, what have I gotten myself into? I've been ambushed tonight with this one. This is definitely NOT a Halloween movie recommendation.

Some over the hill heffer is fantasizing about the past and gives a blow-by-blow description about her favorite toy boy. Then a big boned "roomy at the hips" British slag shows up wearing a painting canvas and leeches onto that shaggy haired Danny from Caddyshack. (Any fool can deduce that she's the adulterer from the start of the movie who was naked on the horse.) Oh brother, this is stupid. A car just drove over a high plain and exploded for no reason.

Jeez, are they gonna start quoting Shakespeare, or something now?

The battleaxe starts fantasizing about the past again with juicy revelations while some hairy slob appears but keeps shape shifting into a young ripped stud then back into a papa bear and so forth. But what has this to do with the telephone in the graveyard?

The Night Stalker, or Danny, commits his mother to a looneybin and you should hear this groovy music to accompany this scene.

I haven't got a clue what this movie's about, or where it's heading?

Two young brothers live on the set of Bonanza doing odd jobs and maintenance work with some alcoholic uncle who's unstable, and hampers their every move with drunken verbal confrontations. Then a British prostitute shows up and apparently she's the reincarnation of the naked horse lady from the beginning of the movie, who's back to slay nobody as she's not really the naked horse lady? Do I have that right?

Hang on a minute! There's no impaled woman in the movie like on the video cover!

This is just an hour and 20-minutes of pure BS you'll never get back.

Someone must have felt like making a movie but they forgot to write a storyline!

I'll give Haunted 1/10 for the horrible actor going up in flames at the end.

This movie owes me an apology!

That phone booth had NOTHING to do with the movie at all.

You'd be better off watching God Monster of Indian Flats.

A telephone in a cemetery? Surely the line would be dead (badum-tish!)

[BA_Harrison · 1/10 · 21 October 2018]

During the US Civil War, a priest and a cavalry soldier steal gold from the Indians, hiding it in a mine. When Indian squaw Abanaki (Ann Michelle) discovers what they have been up to, the pair accuse the woman of witchcraft, have her tied to a horse, stripped to the waist and sent into the desert to die. Cue titles and wonderfully awful theme song 'Indian Woman' by Billy Vera (the first of several songs in the movie, soundtrack available on LP and tape for those with no taste).

Present day: brothers Patrick (Jim Negele) and Russell (Brad Rearden) manage a run-down Wild West movie ranch in the middle of the desert, with help from their gruff, mean-spirited Uncle Andrew (Aldo Ray). Their mother (Virginia Mayo), blind since a car accident, has lost most of her marbles and prattles on incoherently (at one point giving a strange account of her sex life with her husband, who died in the accident).

Two engineers arrive to install a telephone booth in the adjacent cemetery, a task they somehow complete within five minutes. Soon after, a woman, Jennifer (also played by Michelle), comes to the ranch, experiencing car trouble. While her vehicle is being repaired, Patrick falls for Jennifer, taking her for night-time walks to a nearby lake (where the couple make love, giving Michelle another excuse to flash her tits), and visit an inexplicably popular restaurant where a guy bashes out ear-grating tunes on a weird organ. Meanwhile, Aldo Ray over-acts for all his worth, his character becoming even more unstable once Patrick informs him of his plan to close down the ranch, put his mother in a sanatarium, and move with his brother to Milwaukee.

None of this is very interesting, and certainly not scary (despite the film's horror tag). It is, however, extremely confusing, the film written, directed and acted in a manner suggesting recreational drug use throughout by all involved - it's the only plausible reason I can think of for the oddball execution, bizarre performances, and utterly incomprehensible dialogue.

Towards the end of the film (which can't come soon enough), Andrew answers a call in the telephone booth and hears a woman's voice talking gibberish, after which he totally wigs out, strangling an old Indian hag who tells him that Abanaki has been reincarnated. He then attacks Jennifer, ties her up and douses the room in petrol, but becomes drenched in fuel himself when the young woman escapes. As the pair fight it out in the phone booth, the lightbulb is smashed causing Andrew to go up in flames (an impressive stunt for such a stinker of a film).

A dull, perplexing mess that makes not one iota of sense, Haunted is recommended for those who actively seek out really bad films or for anyone struggling to sleep.

Enjoyable low-budget horror chiller

[Woodyanders · 8/10 · 17 November 2011]

Innocent young nubile Indian maiden Abanaki (gorgeously embodied by buxom brunette looker Anne Michelle) gets falsely accused of witchcraft and is sent out to the dessert to die in the unsparingly harsh Arizona heat. She vows to exact revenge on the relatives and descendants of those responsible for her death in a hundred years. When enticing British gal Jennifer Baines (also played by Michelle) rolls into town, irascible caretaker Andrew (ferociously essayed with growly conviction and hyper-aggressive intensity by the ever-manic Aldo Ray) naturally suspects the lass of being a lethal reincarnation of Abanaki. Writer/director Michael A. DeGaetnano relates the spooky story at a steady pace, makes effectively bleak use of the drab and arid ghost town location, creates and sustains a nicely eerie mood, and delivers a sizable smattering of tasty female nudity (ladies will be happy to know that Aldo removes his shirt and shows off his hot'n'hairy chunky physique in a disgustingly sweaty sex scene). Ray's frenzied eyeball-rolling histrionics provide the key source of energy and entertainment throughout. Moreover, there's solid work from Virginia Mayo as batty old blind lady Michelle, Jim Negele as the likable Patrick, and Brad Reardon as the nerdy Russell. In addition, there's an extremely brutal and intense full body burn gag at the very end that's sure to make you gasp. William E. Hines' stark cinematography gives the picture an appropriately gloomy look. Lor Crane's shivery score does the shuddery ooga-booga trick. The funky theme song "Indian Woman" sung by Billy Vera hits the right-on groovy spot, too. An entertaining little drive-in fright flick.

Fairly good fun for schlock lovers.

[Hey_Sweden · 6/10 · 21 December 2011]

Gloriously goofy low budget shocker from writer / co-producer / director Michael De Gaetano; it's so laughable so often that one has to believe he basically had his tongue in his cheek the entire time. They also know that when the opening text / exposition makes them laugh, that can be a direct indicator of what's to come. 100 years ago, a proud young Indian woman is framed for theft and sentenced to ride her horse - topless - throughout the desert until she dies. Well, that's somewhat novel, at the least. Then a century later, a lost British lass comes upon an Arizona community where a dysfunctional family resides in a run down old movie studio - a lass who just might be the reincarnation of that long ago Indian woman. Another thing that sets this little movie up quite well right away is the uproarious, overwrought disco theme song "Indian Woman" sung by Billy Vera of "At This Moment" fame. This itself is indicative of the melodrama to come as thuggish Andrew (Aldo Ray) and blind Michelle (Virginia Mayo) reminisce. The two veterans are a total hoot what with their histrionics; Ray completely turns on the intensity and nuttiness as Andrew becomes more and more unhinged - and homicidal - as the story progresses. Meanwhile, Michelle's son Patrick (likable enough Jim Negele) becomes fond of the stranger in town, played by lovely Ann Michelle ("House of Whipcord"). She actually comes off the best, even if her character(s) are very thinly written; she's quite easy to watch (and shows off her breasts for the appreciation of all those watching); Brad Rearden ("Hi- Riders", "The Silent Scream") is stuck with an annoying role as the bratty younger brother Russell. On location filming in Arizona *is* one appreciable asset, as well as a decent music score by Lor Crane, and a pretty enjoyable final act that culminates in an intense full body burn. "Haunted" does work fairly well as an amusing bit of wild 'n' wacky nonsense; De Gaetano does have a good feel for the bizarre, starting with the perfectly silly idea of having a phone booth installed in a cemetery in order to set up one of his most surreal touches. If all of this sounds right up your alley, then by all means dive right in. The movie is absurd but not without some charms. Six out of 10.

A de-Minimis Native American curse tossout.

[EyeAskance · 29 November 2007]

This film wastes absolutely no time showing titty, as a young Native American girl convicted of gold thievery is stripped and tied to a horse, sent forth into the desert to die alone. Said nubile was innocent, and vows her revenge.

100 years have passed, and the old mining town is now a decrepit and unutilized movie ranch. Aldo Ray and (blind)Virginia Mayo are among the few living there. Some guys install a telephone booth in the cemetery, and a girl in transit has car trouble and must stay there overnight. Sound interesting so far? It's not, quite frankly, and it doesn't get much better...in fact, HAUNTED barely registers as a horror film, as the supernatural foundations of the story are barely tapped. I did enjoy the music, however, the theme song especially...a highly orchestral bubblegum pop anthem that almost has the sound of a 007 theme.

Overall, a nothing little puff of a movie which wastes an able cast, and offers too little to make it recommendable. Subtract yourself.

3/10.

Desert schlock

[drownsoda90 · 6/10 · 29 October 2023]

This 1977 low-budgeter follows a dysfunctional family residing on an Arizona movie ranch/former mission, who have apparently befallen to a curse placed by a Native American woman accused of witchcraft a century prior.

"Haunted" begins in good grindhouse fashion with an inter title prologue and a topless Native American woman being forced to ride a horse into the desert to die. Fast forward a century later, and the mission from which she was ousted is now a movie ranch being renovated by two brothers; their uncle (Aldo Ray) also resides there, along with their widowed blind mother (Virginia Mayo). The arrival of a young woman, Jennifer--who may or may not be the Native American woman, reincarnated--disrupts the already muddied familial waters.

While there is little by way of logic or followthrough here a far as narrative is concerned, "Haunted" at least succeeds for its propensity for the surreal. Completely bizarre elements, such as a phone booth being installed in a cemetery at the ranch, appear in the film with little to no explanation, and their function as plot devices seems shaky and utterly random. The plot itself predates something like the Salem witch trials-inspired "The Devonsville Terror" in that it focuses on an alleged witch returning a century later to avenge her death, but "Haunted" is much less cohesive and much weirder.

There is some great desert cinematography here, and the film is extremely atmospheric. It is all punctuated by a cheapie folk music soundtrack which was written and recorded for the film, and actually released on vinyl(!) The cast here range from inept to serviceable. Aldo Ray is at his most disheveled, while Virginia Mayo leans heavily into a soapy, melodramatic portrayal of the blind mother whose supernatural ravings may not actually be delusion. Brad Rearden, who some genre fans may recognize from "The Silent Scream," portrays the younger of the two brothers.

All in all, "Haunted" is a reasonably amusing oddity whose entertainment value mainly derives from the slipshod production and sheer strangeness that tends to come from B-grade fly-by-the-seat filmmaking of this era. It is certainly the only film I've ever seen in which spirits contact the living via a cemetery phone booth on a movie ranch--and for that, it's at least something. 6/10.

What brainchild classified this pile of crap as horror?

[redcat · 24 March 1999]

OK, the movie. Way back in the olden days some cowboys and a priest decided that an Indian woman needed to die. The reason is completely unmemorable. They put her on a horse, take her shirt off and send her packing to die in the desert of Arizona. Before they set her off, she says something to the extent of her haunting this land. Off she goes. Enter present day. A family living in a ghost town witness a telephone booth going up in the middle of a grave yard. The mother of the two boys is blind after an accident involving a naked horse woman. The accident killed her husband. She believes that they are being haunted.

This movie gets cheese points because of the laughable scripting, acting, dialog, and the original songs that appear in the movie. There was even a soundtrack released to accompany the movie. In a terrible amusing scene, we see the Uncle chasing the woman into the phone booth with a sharp stick he wittled with a knife (where the hell is the knife?). The only blood in this movie is where Uncle Collage Grad stabs him self with his wittled stick. I'd also like to know who let them use the set from Wild Wild West.