Nerds That Geek Movie Review: ‘A Haunting at Silver Falls’

Written by Scott Edwards 

Young Jordan has moved to the small town of Silver Falls after her father has passed away. Her mother died when she was five years old and now, she is living with her mother’s twin sister Anne and husband Kevin. Thinking she is a troubled teen from L.A. the two new parents work to make sure that Jordan is making wise decisions and not falling back into the downward spiral she was in before moving in with them. Just being herself, she has eyes for a young man named Larry, who is one of the nerdy boys from the high school and only wants to take it slow.

Going up for a party at the Falls, Jordan and Larry sit back and talk about the area and how it is haunted. Larry keeps the conversation casual and plays off the fact that there are ghosts all over the place and what they do around the town. The party gets broken up by the police and Jordan finds herself alone in the woods and hears someone whispering her name. Stopping cold in her tracks, Jordan spots a ring sitting on the ground. Thinking little about its origin, she puts it on and finds her way home with the sheriff’s son. Alone in her room, Jordan gets a special visitor that watches her sleep and tries to take the ring away from her before making a small mess around the house.

Asking Anne and Kevin if they think the house could be haunted, the couple plays it off saying that ‘of course it is’ with all of the dead bodies they keep in the basement. But they quickly get serious and point out that country houses have their own personality in this town and people from outside of the area cannot truly understand what these strange quirks are when they happen. Jordan accepts the explanation, but when she has a dream, one where she is in the woods, being pursued by a ghostly girl, she starts to notice that things are not what they really seem. For when she awakens, the finger she put the strange ring on has been bitten, and her feet are covered in dirt. 

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​The events continue to get worse and Jordan is not allowed to talk to her boyfriend as he has been grounded. The spirit of a dead girl wants to get the ring off of Jordan’s finger, but not even Jordan can remove it herself. The ghost starts to appear in the daytime as Jordan tries to go on with her daily life and starts to frighten her to the extent, that she needs to visit the local therapist. The doctor tells her that it is a shared delusion of the town that started over twenty years ago after the murder of two local girls. After speaking with the father who was accused of the murders, Jordan finds that she is in for much more as another band of the ring finds its way onto her finger.

A Haunting at Silver Falls follows young Jordan as she tries to cope with the loss of her parents. Although Jordan seems to be a normal teenager, she starts to get harassed by the spirit of a young girl that was killed many years ago. Meeting hesitation when asking about who this could be, she finds out that the secrets of the town are much more than she could ever expect. With the dead girl following her, trying to kill her and then leading her to find the truth behind what actually happened twenty years ago, Jordan is left with the tough task of trying to figure out who to trust in this small community.

Overall, I enjoyed the premise of this movie. If you're looking for a good ghost story with the twists and turns that come from being moved to a small town, it is hard to go wrong with this one. It does however seem that there are several foreshadowing set ups that are never answered as the movie plays out. But if you just stay with the classic ghost story, you will not be very disappointed, even though you have to wait to see the very last scene for the payoff. Stay Scared.

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