The Ganzfeld Haunting (2014)

I didn't go into this film expecting it to be an amazing film, but I didn't expect it to be as bad as it was. For starters, the picture on the case (a big building that looks like an asylum of some sort) and the synopsis on the back of the case, did not match the setting or the events of the film. Secondly, the film had a very tenuous link to the Ganzfeld experiments, certainly not one big enough to justify having the film supposedly revolve around them. Another thing is the plot was very empty, to the point that 20 minutes of two teenage girls (who have an inexplicably large amount of cocaine) having sex-but-not-quite was needed to try and keep the audience at all interested, when really it served no purpose and added nothing to the film. There are no twists in the film, no surprises and no interesting new ideas. There was a gratuitous amount of plot holes and very forced, unnatural situations, even for a world where the 'paranormal' is real. If you don't take my word for how bad this film is, be sure to watch it anyway, that way you'll find out first hand just how abysmal it really is.

Four students are working on their final psychology project for class. They are Becket (apparently a girl's name)- the nerdy girl, Eliot- the nerdy guy in charge of the technology, Graves- a jerk, and Lucky- a girl jerk who thinks she's hot but isn't. They chose to do a parapsychological Ganzfeld experiment in an old abandoned house with a furnace problem that belongs to Becket's family. In the Ganzfeld experiment as performed by them, a receiver is placed in a room with a red light wearing white goggles and headphones that play white noise. In another room is the sender and everyone else. Pictures of playing cards are randomly presented on a screen, the sender articulates the kind of card and tries to send the image of the card mentally to the receiver who is then supposed to receive the communication telepathically and make it become visible on screens in the other room.For the first 30 minutes these people just bicker and give each other a hard time. Lucky immediately pulls out a bag of cocaine and she and Graves do nothing but snort it. Initially not much happens with the experiment, but then Graves as a receiver sees and hears his father, and also some little girl. Next Becket takes the seat as a receiver and she starts seeing and hearing all sorts of nasty things including a murder, she writes down the word "sisters" on a paper and it freaks out everybody because they are seeing the images on screen. She calls her mom to confirm that she doesn't have any sister because now she has a feeling that the girl that's appearing is her sister indeed. The mom confirms she has no sisters but isn't very convincing.At this point most movies would have continued in this vein, with things going downhill and becoming bloody. Instead here, now with everybody freaked out they start drinking, smoking pot, doing coke. Becket and Eliot lose their inhibitions and she starts fooling around with Lucky in a fairly erotic scene, which could be even hotter had they cast someone else as Lucky. But when things are getting interesting, the creepy girl interrupts things. Again everybody freaks out. They do more drugs. Becket finally hooks up with Eliot. She then goes back to the receiver room and sees a revelation. Turns out that these 4 were friends as kids already. Well, there were 5 if we include Becket's sister who was murdered. And the surprise is who killed her and why. Naturally she flips out. In the morning the cops arrive.By the reviews and scores on IMDb you would think this movie is the worst. And things don't start out well. There are some editing problems initially and I just can't stand watching a group of people confined in a small space screaming at each other. But it manages to turn itself around and improve. Granted, to make use of time they give us tons of repetitive scenes of the kids taking cocaine. They should have focused a bit more on the girl, and the childhood scenes instead. Acting is good all around. Taylor Cole is lovely and it's great to see her in a sexy role. Direction is very good. This movie could easily have been a complete disaster. Movies that stick just to people going crazy without any interesting reality outside their minds make for awful movies. But the fact that it goes beyond just the madness and gives us some reality, namely the lives of them as kids and the murder years ago makes it far more interesting. Some questions remain after it's all over. And usually that doesn't work for me. But here it does because it's not like we are given no explanation for what happened, instead we get several possible explanations or a combinations of them. Was it the drugs, was it a gas leak, both perhaps that account for what happened? This movie got me involved, starting with the erotic scenes and even the psychological aspect was very well done. The movie looks and sounds very good. While it does have the usual jarring sounds and editing at times, they could have gone with the usual bleak gray/blue look as so many do, instead they went with natural saturated colors which don't remove the audience but involves it instead. Overall this movie is a success despite what others here claim.

The dear d b user said pretty much everything. I absolutely agree with him and want to congratulate him for having the patience to write so many things for this meaningless and total crap of a "film." A film with no reason to be made from the start. Nothing worth seeing on this garbage. Except for those who like to see naked or almost naked girls, make out and stuff. Something you see in hundreds of movies. Taylor Cole, is an absolutely gorgeous and very sexy woman to lay your eyes on, and one of my personal favorites, but she didn't have to underestimate herself and star in this total trash of a movie just to earn some money. She has potentials to gain money with her looks and her acting skills, even though on this one, she doesn't show them at all.A "marriage" between the classic plot with a group of teens/students who go for a holiday to have "fun" by smoking joint, snorting cocaine, giving lesbian kisses,and supernatural figures and ghosts. Just to laugh at and get angry at the creators, who totally insult your intelligence.I respect and applaud any effort in low budget movies and new ideas. But this one is an absolute failing attempt on combining 2 different themes, and also sticking to one theme either. And also is one from the many similar movies we constantly see and has nothing to offer. Absolutely nothing, in my opinion.Well it might have one thing. For people who may suffer from insomnia, will probably help them to sleep, and actually enjoy their sleep.1 out of 10.

A team of psychology students go to a deserted house to run an experiment. They where teamed up by their professor and they don't seem to like each other much. But they have to work together even if their feelings for each other start getting in the way.Their experiment has to do with sleep deprivation. During their experiments they loose the touch between past, present and future. They don't know what is real and what is not. Why the past is haunting them and how it affects the future.The movie is not bad. It has some interesting ideas and some small twists. But in overall it is not good either. Also… Beware of the past it always comes back to haunt you!