Newspaper reporter Julia Talben (Jessica Lowndes) is tired of doing stale real estate stories. Her sister Amanda's entire family is massacred. Julia and police detective Declan Grady find a blood-drenched Richard Renshaw inside the house. Renshaw surrenders but Julia finds no easy answers. Somebody quickly buys the house and the crime scene is mysteriously ripped out. It's one of many murder rooms collected over the years by Jebediah Crone (Dayton Callie).This is trying very hard to be a brutal noir. Any bright joy is stripped out of the frame. Even daylight looks bleak. While I appreciate the attempt, it is not all together successful. It struggles visually with the lower budget and weak directing. The intentional lifelessness leaves the movie lifeless. It looks more cheap than stylized. As a horror, there is nothing to be had until the last part with the rooms. Simple jump scares are beyond this movie. Crone doesn't even appear for the first half. This fails on a very basic level.

This is a strange movie. It has better much better production value than the standard Netflix 'Blair Witch' ripoff, shaky cam garbage. I think what they were going for a slow burn, atmosphere heavy, modern Gothic feel. There's some nice direction and art direction here but the over all feel is that of a Hallmark Channel production. The main villain has WAY too much screen time to be effective and while he's one of my favorite actors from 'Deadwood', he is not a very frightening baddie. The 'house' at the end looks like the CGI creation it is, very jumbled and fake looking instead of terrifying. The ending is pure Deus Ex Machina and very unsatisfying. This really could have been something good had the script been a little stronger and the production budget a little higher. Still I applaud the makers for not taking the easy way out and attempting an actual MOVIE instead of giving us more Netflix fodder.

This is a wholly original concept realised in a traditional manner, at least for the first two thirds of the running time. The exception is the lead character Julia (Jessica Lowndes) and her detective boyfriend, who appear to have walked out of a 1950's film noir project – her make-up, style and car are very reminiscent of that era, and Detective Grady (Joe Anderson) poses and shoots foxy small-talk as if he is a modern day personality of the Humphrey Bogart school of presentation. Not that this is a problem; it is unusual and arresting. The fact that no comment is made of their anachronistic personas places them in a kind of limbo.The central concept, of someone who makes a habit of buying houses where gruesome murders have taken place, and then sets about removing the rooms where the victims died to make his own Frankenstein-style hybrid construct, is pleasingly perverse and outrageous. Events take a long time to reach this magnificent set-piece, but the wait is very much worth it.As the strange Allie, Lin Shaye plays a seemingly tortured character who's true nature is not (partially) revealed until the final frame. A scene in which she stares into her mirror, pulling the skin on her face taut, reveals inner demons that are never fully addressed. Without dialogue, it is a mesmerising moment, and Shaye adds to an already very strong cast.Pieces fall further into place once Jebediah Crone turns up, surrounded by townsfolk followers. Dayton Callie plays him with a gentle, but persuasive authority, a sort of genial cousin of Danny DeVito's Penguin character from 'Batman Returns (1992'). The resultant patchwork 'house in the woods' is exactly the kind of impossible and monstrous dismembered collection of rooms such a mad-hatter character would construct. And here is where every apparent anachronism finds an environment in which it makes sense. These are the realms of the fantastic, and this is a pay-off I certainly was not expecting. Special and directorial effects (the latter courtesy of Darren Lynn Bousman) that have thus far been highly restrained, take on epic proportions suddenly, and are utterly brilliant: the true stuff of nightmare.

I got to see this film at several film festivals and highly recommend it! Abattoir is a very unique and special movie that I am so happy was made. Its not your run of the mill slasher horror and its not your average, generic studio film. You can tell the director wanted to make a film that gives audiences more to chew on and a real mystery to follow. The script is nearly written in prose, with passages of dialogue that hark back to the noir detective movies of the 1940s and 1950s, which I love. The cinematography is also very special, by one of my favorite DPs who shot "Oculus," bringing forth saturated yet contrasted colors and a gorgeous color palette (it is Darren's best filmed movie). However, its the performances that really sell it for me. Dayton Callie in the role of Jebediah Crone is masterful. His persona on screen is mesmerizing and his dialogue in this film is rich with metaphor and color. I absolutely love where he goes with his character and what we see from his character is not expected! Jessica Lowndes playing Julia is fantastic. She brings both strength and real emotion to her character and that jumps off the screen. I love that she embraced her role not as a damsel in distress, but rather blends determination and vulnerability in her work. Joe Anderson plays the perfect detective, with dashes of Bogart and Sinatra at the core. He has the perfect swagger, and I really enjoyed buying into his relationship with Julia.But my favorite role is Allie, played by the amazing Lin Shaye. She always brings depth and dimension to her characters (have you seen her in "The Signal"), and in Abattoir, Lin plays Allie perfectly. Quirky, yet stern and veiled so you cant believe the twists and turns.The movie does have a long second act, as there is lots of story and character. I can also see why if your not paying attention or are watching this film with people who are not paying attention, a lot of the nuance can be missed. But the payoff is huge and once your inside the Abattoir, the film stands apart from anything else out there in the horror, thriller, mystery genre or otherwise. This film is also such a cool premise with an amazing ending that was even more enjoyable the second time I saw it. There were bits and pieces I caught on the second viewing, that missed the first time around. I hope you love it as much as me.