The Abandoned

(2006)

If you assume that a ghost story produced in Russia using a mostly Russian cast, but done in English, would not be very good, you'd be wrong, because this 2006 horror/mystery/thriller has a fairly unique storyline, and is quite good.

A woman who was adopted in Russia as a baby, raised in England, then migrated to America, returns to her native Russia to take possession of the family farm. She knows nothing of her real family, but learns from the attorney handling the farm that her mother had been murdered by her father right after her birth, 42 years ago.

Once at the farm, strange things begin to happen, as she encounters a man who claims to be her twin brother. Soon, they begin to see ghosts, including their own! And, how can that be? They're not dead....yet.

I was surprised at how good this flick is, for its genre. If you like this type of movie, you'll want to catch The Abandoned.

Marta Yaneva

Private Dances 3

This time: Danni Ashe

Scoop's note: I always used to get a kick out of Danni's claim to be the most downloaded woman on the internet. The total amount of downloads she claimed, even if accurate, was lower than the number of daily downloads of Jennifer Connelly from my site alone. Of course, that was back when both the Funhouse and the Encyclopedia were free sites, so we had some mammoth numbers, and Connelly was the most popular woman on the site in the mid-90s, but still ... my site must have represented only a tiny percentage of total Connelly downloads. I guess Danni meant she was the most downloaded non-famous woman.

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