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!
