AnhartLinkin This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.

Verity Robins Great movie. Not sure what people expected but I found it highly entertaining.

Portia Hilton Blistering performances.

Ginger Very good movie overall, highly recommended. Most of the negative reviews don't have any merit and are all pollitically based. Give this movie a chance at least, and it might give you a different perspective.

Michael Ledo "The Abandoned" (US title) and "Confined" (UK Title) are the same film. Julia (Louisa Krause) has mental issues and is on meds. She has one last chance to see her daughter Chloe. While she aspires to be a nurse she gets a gig as a nighttime security guard of an abandoned palace hotel. She works with the condescending misogynistic Cooper (Jason Patric). Julia sees things and Cooper doesn't trust her. She discovers a locked abandoned section and enters. She walks through the rooms and hallways and entertains us with rapid panic breathing and gasps. Why? I had no idea, the scary stuff comes later.Eventually all the mysteries are revealed to us in a way that was idiotic and anti-climatic.Guide: No swearing, sex, or nudity.

dysamoria Spoiler free statement: Expend your time on this at your own risk. Once you get to the ending, you'll possibly be wondering how anything made any sense, even within the confines of the movie's own world in a bottle. You're not missing anything. There is not enough meaningfulness in this film, as presented, to extract solid conclusions about what you watched. It spoon feeds you clichés and so-called surprises and refuses to justify character attitudes, motivations, actions, or reactions. These aren't complex and subtle things. There's nothing to uncover except one plot point you will probably see coming from the moment the protagonist suddenly discovers the history of the building (her declaration of having finally uncovered the details comes without the film ever having given us the sense that she was actually looking). Finally, the movie tries to surprise you at the end, only to make the preceding content entirely irrelevant. This is not good story telling. It's paint-by-numbers movie industry product assembly with the illusion of depth. Actual depth requires structure and the ability to take the ending and reframe all that went before it in a new and meaningful way. It's a shame movies like this have actors in them. As in, people who's livelihood depends on the success of the films they work on. Such films as this one probably don't do their careers any favors with the next job, especially with how actors tend to get blamed by audiences for the poor job done by the writers and directors who's material the actors are performing to specification. Then again, it wasn't really given a large release. Sometimes that's for lack of access and sometimes that's for lack of quality. I'm suspecting the latter here.One specific complaint: many of the reviews talk about a spectacular filming location. All I saw was a set of disparate locations stitched together by editing that makes it clear to me that each room is a different filming locale (or fails to show that any of these rooms is even related to the rest; often, moving from one physical location to another involves an edit, rather than passing the viewer through the environment from one space to the next). I don't buy that this was one location. If it really was, then wow, the editing and directing failed spectacularly to show it. It is left entirely to the willing suspension of disbelief of the audience to imagine these rooms relate to each other. This is common in lower budget productions where you often assemble fictitious locations via editing. I don't call 1.5 MILLION dollars to be "low budget", but I guess that's how it is these days and I'm being naive to expect more for that much money.It amazes me that people don't notice this, but then I also find myself rather alone in hating so much foley in TV and film. In fact, the foley bothered me more than the disparate locations on display. At least the locations and lighting result in an interesting atmosphere. But, that's really all there is: Atmosphere and cliché.

Sjalka Rjadottir I'll make it quick... The Abandoned has a rather boring story that has been told in many a suspense movies before. Although the end may explain the many questions and plot holes - it remains a highly unsatisfying movie.The acting is over the top. Instead of subtlety, the actors pretty much switch from one extreme to another.Also - even a Ninja Turtle animated episode is probably scarier than this movie.It is a very disappointing 2/10. It is not a 1 because it is not dreadful - just boring.

Nigel P It is just possible that in Security Guard Cooper, Jason Patric plays one of the most obnoxious characters in modern cinema. He plays it to perfection - as he 'welcomes' new security guard Julia Streak (a fine performance from Louisa Krause), you are waiting for whatever dark creatures that may lurk in the shadows of the apartment complex they are patrolling to come and do their worst to this embittered, annoying wheelchair-bound character. He even suggests Streak change into her uniform in front of him, revealing a certain deviance.He is such a vile personality that it is almost a pity when he appears to soften as the various apparitions of scary faces in the darkness become more prevalent, especially as, at least initially, they aren't terribly frightening. His judgement appears to over-ride hers when a homeless man (Jim, played by Mark Margolis) begs to spend the night in the building, fearing he will die in the storm outside. Against Cooper's express wishes, Streak allows him into one of the vacant rooms. Luckily, there is a recorded documentary available for Streak and Cooper to watch, which explains how the building was a 'dumping ground' for deformed, mentally disturbed children many years ago, operating under-funded, by doctors who were being investigated for malpractice.As Streak threatens to close the place down, believing the spirits of the children are still present, Cooper reveals he knows her secret – she is mentally unstable and on a course of tablets: she should not be working in a high security job such as this. He handcuffs her to the cupboard in the observation room: perhaps he has not softened after all.The ending contains a twist. Freeing herself and travelling to the mysterious room where the children are sent as punishment, Streak confronts a young girl with a facial deformity – she hugs her and tells her "It's not your fault," which doesn't seem to signify anything. The doors open and appear to free Streak from the building. In what is a massive SPOILER (so beware): we then find that Streak has actually been in a coma all her adult life, and has just died. She is lying on a hospital bed. Her father is played by Jason Patric (who appears to have a security job, judging by his uniform). As the camera pulls away from her lifeless body, we see she has a facial deformity identical to the young girl in what appears to be her 'dream'. Outside her room is another patient, played by Mark Margolis. Was the 'not your fault' line directed at Streak's younger self, signifying she was abused by her father, or does the remark somehow refer to her deformity? Whether it all fits together with what we have seen and forms a satisfying conclusion is up to viewer discretion. Possibly it asks more questions than it answers. That revelatory confusion put to one side, this is an otherwise solid horror film, with some pedestrian scares and a fairly touching finale.