The House on Haunted Grounds (2026) Review

In the era of small and relatively inexpensive digital cameras, the found footage genre is saturated with low-budget, quickly-produced horror movies, many hoping they might be the next Blair Witch or Paranormal Activity. Rarely do they reach such heights, but we’ve at least got an array of interesting settings and stories out of the set-up. Among my personal favourites is the ghosthunting show gone awry. It’s difficult to do it better than the Vicious Brothers’ fabulous Grave Encounters movies, and admittedly, we seem to get little variation out of it, but it almost always makes for cheap, easy thrills in creepy places. Brendan Rudnicki’s The House on Haunted Grounds is the latest such movie, and while its short runtime prevents it from feeling like a time-waster, there are some inconsistencies that prevent it from really hitting the right marks.

Amy (Logan Wallace) is your classic spiritually-attuned protagonist with a genuine belief in the ghosts she is hunting; Tony (Andrew Thomas) is the showman who is effectively riding her coattails. They are wrapping up their internet series on the paranormal with a visit to the house where an infamous murderer in a clown mask was gunned down by police on the tail-end of a killing spree, and all the usual spooky shenanigans ensue. Along with them is Kate (Cashmere Monique), a meek fan of the show acting as a runner with dreams of a more permanent place on the team, and Bradley (Stuart Maxheimer), the showrunner who watches the monitors from the safety of their van. The most perplexing member of the gang is Dylan (assistant director and frequent Rudnicki collaborator Dylan Devane), the largely faceless and impactless cameraman you forget is an actual player in the movie.

The framing of the footage, and the logic of how exactly the footage is obtained, is the film’s real downfall. Contrary to popular belief, found footage is a logistically nightmarish way to make a movie, and I have nothing but respect for those who attempt it. Rudnicki is not a newcomer to this format, and clearly loves the genre and his place in it, but perhaps he could benefit from an AD who pulls him back out of the process and looks at the project from a more objective place. There are many instances in The House on Haunted Grounds in which there is no reason why the footage we are seeing would have been captured (or saved and later recovered) in the first place. We see things from one angle, but then another angle of the same scene shows there is no camera there to capture it. Dylan has so little agency as a character that by the end of the movie, he is apparently just standing and watching his team physically attack each other, not even commenting on the situation, let alone intervening. He is little more than a Lakitu cameraman from Mario 64, just bobbing around. There are times when it feels more like a conventional movie than found footage because of how he operates.

The house itself makes for a pretty cool setting, although we only ever get the standard jump scares out of it. Even without the found footage element implying that nobody gets out alive, you can see where it’s all going, and when it gets there, there is little surprise in it all. However, Andrew Thomas gets comfortable in his increasingly demented role, eventually doing his best Jack Torrance and making for a fairly imposing figure. He also gets the best and most compelling shot of the movie – the one it ends on – which, for this seasoned horror and found footage connoisseur, felt quite unique and impactful, a really cool note to wrap things up with.

You’ll rarely catch me diminishing the efforts of cheap found footage horror, or challenging its right to exist. Movies like these usually earn their keep, and although there isn’t much to be added to the genre by The House on Haunted Grounds, it’s a fun little ghosthouse romp that at times feels akin to a creepy video game. Just because it’s not very good doesn’t mean it’s not enjoyable, and I would love for Rudnicki and co. to make their living with such movies for many years to come. Keep it up, fellas.

Movie Rating:

The House on Haunted Grounds trailer