The Abandoned (2006 film)
| The Abandoned | |
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Theatrical release poster
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| Directed by | Nacho Cerdà |
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| Music by | Alfons Conde |
| Cinematography | Xavi Giménez |
| Edited by | Jorge Macaya |
| Distributed by | After Dark Films Lionsgate |
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Release date
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Running time
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94 minutes |
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| Language | English Spanish Russian |
| Box office | $4.2 million |
The Abandoned is a 2006 horror film co-written and directed by Nacho Cerdà, about an American film producer who returns to her homeland, Russia, to discover the truth about her family history. It is an international co-production between Bulgaria, Spain, and the United Kingdom.
A Russian peasant family is eating dinner when a truck stops in the front yard. The father opens the door of the truck to find a murdered woman and two crying infants in the seat next to her.
Marie Jones, an American woman, is seen in a Russian hotel room making a call to her daughter; she then goes to meet a local notary, who tells her that she has inherited some property, and that she should visit it. Having been taken to the wooded island, she finds that the house is dilapidated and inhabited by zombie-like creatures, one of whom looks like her. Having attempted to escape, she meets Nikolai, who tells her that they are twins, adopted separately following the murder of their mother.
The house seems to change at random between a state of dilapidation and a state of domestication. Threatened by the zombie-like creatures, Nikolai shoots one of them in the leg, only to find that the wound appears on his own body. He deduces that they are his and Marie's doppelgängers, and that 'what happens to them happens to us'. When Nikolai falls into a hole in the floor while the house is dilapidated, Marie is unable to rescue him as the hole suddenly heals over when the house changes to a domesticated state.
Marie attempts to escape by rowing across the river. After a lengthy walk on the opposite bank, she happens upon a house, only to find that it is the house she has escaped from, with Nikolai inside. He explains that their father intended to kill them along with their mother when they were babies, and that they cannot leave until he has managed to reunite the family in death. The house reverts to its state on the night of the murder, and they see their father returning home.
Nikolai tells Marie that they can escape in the truck along with their mother and their younger selves. While searching for the truck, Marie finds her father's now desiccated body in the barn, and is then pushed into a pseudo-past where she realizes her father and the notary are the same person. She flees his office in the present and runs into her past self as she comes up the steps, and continues fleeing into the sunlight until she finds herself back in the house, this time between the past and the present, where the apparition of her father explains that he has always loved his children and his wife, and could not let them leave him. She runs from him and finds Nikolai's body being eaten by boars. When her doppelgänger comes after her, Marie flees to the truck parked outside and drives away.
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