Nerds That Geek Movie Review: ‘A Haunting on Gabriel Street’

Written by Scott Edwards

​It does not seem to matter the year, there always seems to be some sort of cover-up taking place in the news that people want to know more about. It could be aliens landing, a Big Foot sighting, or miscellaneous phone calls made to someone; it no longer matters. With the gift of social media, it is easier to get opinions voiced and heard throughout the world and while that is a good thing for the people that want the real information, it can also work against what the people behind the cover-up are trying to protect us from. I am a firm believer that telling the truth is the way to go when any strange events take place, but there are those folks who will take this information and try to build on it and sometimes that is not best for the rest of the people involved.
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Five months after her brother passed away in California, Devan and her family are putting him to rest, or trying to since they still have not received his body from the authorities. Being part of a massive murder scene where forty-two people perished, there are still plenty of questions that need to be answered and Devan wants to get to the bottom of what happened. Getting her friends Nate and Brandon to tag along with her, Devan has the address of the old building that claimed so many innocent souls. Going out to Cali on a fact-finding mission, Nate has the wise idea to tape everything and possibly make a documentary that will expose what the government has covered up in the story.

Arriving at the building, the three start to head in when a neighbor threatens to call the cops on them if they continue. Trying to overpower her will, Nate falls short and is forced to give up his quest of getting into the building, at least on this day. Choosing to do interviews instead, Nate and Brandon take to the streets and ask the locals what they heard about the incident. With the stories being pretty close to the same as what was reported on the news about a uranium deposit opening up under the building and the residents dying from exposure, it does not make sense that the rest of the neighborhood is open and going about their everyday lives, so Nate knows that there is much more to the story that nobody is willing to look at.

Meeting Matt, a former resident of the building and his roommate Miki who helps to take care of him, the group gets a better inside look as to what was happening within the ‘contaminated’ building. With their help, the two groups join forces to perform a night investigation inside the house, mainly to provide Devan with some closure. Getting inside and seeing the all-out destruction of the building, Nate questions what could have made the people go crazy enough to do such a thing, yet nothing presented thus far, especially radiation, makes any sense. Finding her brother’s room, Devan dives in and is able to locate his journal, which might help give her clues as to what might have happened to him and the other residents five months ago. But there is something strange about the building as it starts to awaken and sends the group fleeing for their lives. Without all of their questions answered after reading the journal, the group is ready to give it another go, mainly to find out the secrets of what is hidden in the basement that nobody wants to go down to.

I really enjoyed the premise of the movie and in reality, it played pretty well. With some good chemistry between all of the characters, and people chanting in their sleep, it was evident that whatever is in the building is not gone, more like it is just starting to warm up. I was kind of hoping to see the bodies of the residents of the building, like the characters were, but that part is left up to the imagination. It was shot a little differently than I expected, as you get the feeling of a found footage film in the opening credits, but you have non-found footage scenes throughout. It is not my favorite thing to bounce between those, but it worked out okay overall. With a creepy building, a truth that should never be told, a budding relationship and a demon you never expected, A Haunting on Gabriel Street is not that bad of a ride if you are looking for something to keep you up at night. Stay Scared.

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