The folks out at The Asylum sent out a copy of The Haunting in Salem for us to cover–especially appropriate what with Halloween closing in on us and all–and I usually have at least some trepidations going into an Asylum title. But when I realized I couldn’t immediately pin down just what movie they had Asylumized this time, I realized it was something unexpected: one of the Asylum’s rare unique titles, and that perked my interest.

The town of Salem, Massachusetts, has a new sheriff, and that’s largely because the old one’s entire family was murdered under mysterious circumstances. But the new sheriff quickly discovers that he’s going to be part of something much, much larger: a curse going back several hundred years. But can this newest sheriff and his family survive the curse placed on him? Can they find out what’s behind it?

I have to admit, this is some pretty decent stuff. The early going offers some great tension building opportunities, and does a reasonably good job of releasing that tension. Sure, some points are stranger than others, like the ghost that communicates by instant messenger, but it’s all doing a very nice job of being ominous and then throwing out a few good scares every so often, and that’s half the point of watching a horror movie in the first place, for a good spooky time.

Sadly, the movie only gets stranger the farther in you get, but thankfully, there are still good scares to go around, almost in spite of the lackluster script. The strangeness does add to the suspense of the proceedings as well, because you’re never really all that sure of what’s going on, your connection to it, or how any of it at all relates to the rest of the movie. There will be quite a bit left unexplained by the end here, and in all honesty, that just makes things a bit scarier.

The Haunting in Salem, supposedly based on a true story (likely the Salem Witch Trials, which were quite true indeed) is a pretty strange little title, but it’s not without plenty of creepy scares that make for a fairly worthwhile time. If you’re having a party and want something low-grade scary for some horror neophytes, then you should do just fine here.

The Screenhead Ten Scale gives The Haunting in Salem a seven out of ten for doing a reasonably good job putting out the frights out there, though it’s not without its problems, largest of which is a sublime lack of rational thought put into the narrative.