Haunted Mansion (2015 film)

A young student is alarmed by the agonizing screams of his teacher and goes into a big mansion to find visions of a man burned to death and a woman in black. He then discovers a dead body, which turns out to be his teacher.

Ella (Janella Salvador) and Faye (Sharlene San Pedro) are best friends at a prestigious school. Adrian (Marlo Mortel) has romantic feelings for Ella, who is also skilled with mediumship. After a physical education class, Ella sees a ghost of a girl and is made fun of by three clique students.

Jacob (Jerome Ponce) is asked to give Ella a box of chocolates, which contains cockroaches.

Ella's mother gives her money to join a retreat and the class is taken to a mansion owned by a rich woman during the Japanese Occupation Period.

On the first night, Ella has a vision of a woman in black committing suicide. Ella recognized the woman in the photo as Veronica, Amara's younger sister who committed suicide due to shame from being raped by Jaime. Ella, Faye and Adrian were terrorized by a ghost, which was revealed to be a prank by Megan and her clique. As punishment, the group was not allowed to attend activities and instead served detention by cleaning the whole vicinity.

The next night, Ella was haunted by the ghost of Jaime and ended up fainting in fright. Ms. Gonzalez and the others made the group stay for another day in the mansion to work out their differences, while their classmates and Ms. Taas went home ahead.

Ella confessed to Adrian that she has the ability to see ghosts and caused her father to be killed, which she blamed herself for. Megan, Jessie, Allison, Jack and Steve decided to hunt ghosts, despite warnings from Jacob, Ella, Adrian and Faye. They left Megan's cellphone plugged in a battery pack in the confessional in hopes of recording The Black Lady's (Veronica) voice.

A storm hits the town and causes a power outage, flooding the mansion. Steve remembers Megan's phone and goes to get it alone while the others are fixing candles and putting buckets in leaking areas. Father Anthony notices Allison, Steve and Jack's disappearance and Jessie volunteers to look for them. On the confessional, Steve listens to the recording and is frightened when Jaime's ghost appears pointing at something.

He tries to escape but is caught by another violent ghost and his tongue is severed. Ella and the others hear their screams and find their corpses with their tongues ripped out. Jacob tells everybody that he saw Ms. Gonzalez freaking out over something she heard from the phone and Father Anthony advises them to listen to the recorded message as they might learn something about the killings.

Veronica committed suicide due to Amara's witchcraft practice, which led to her believing Jaime raped her and burning him alive, leading to her losing her love and eventually her own life. Ella, Adrian and Jacob carry Father Anthony to safety, while Megan, Jack, Jessie and Allison flee the mansion. Selya and Anding are killed by Amara, who blasts them through a glass door. Father Anthony asks the three to leave him behind, but Amara kills him. Jaime's ghost appears and points at Amara's ghost.

Megan and the others cross a flooded area outside the mansion, where Allison is pulled down by a supernatural force. Jack and Jessie are also killed before they can warn Megan. Megan encounters Amara, who feasts on the tongues of her three friends.

Adrian convinces Ella to use her abilities to ask help from Veronica and Jaime. Ella is drawn to a vision of the afterlife and is instructed to destroy Amara's corpse before she takes human form.

The trio head to a private tomb in the back area of the house, but Amara appears and captures Jacob. Jacob asks Ella and Adrian to leave him before being killed by Amara, leaving Ella all alone. She runs to the chapel where Amara's ghost confronts her and Ella stabs Amara in the mouth and takes out the latter's tongue, injuring her head.

Ella suffers from amnesia caused by a head injury and her mother tells her memory will return.

Three months later, Ella wakes up to find her memory has returned and her mother rushes out to tell her the good news.

However, the spirit of Amara appears and the two fight, resulting in Ella getting mortally wounded.

Ella uses her strength to condemn Amara back to hell by placing a rosary around her neck and thus putting an end to Amara's atrocities avenging the victims of her crimes.

As Amara screams and vanishes, Ella collapses unconsciously to the floor and the camera pans up to her as she opens her eyes once more and the screen cuts to black.

The script for the film, originally entitled Rest House, took five years to perfect.[5] According to Lily Monteverde, Regal Entertainment decided to enter the film for the 2015 Metro Manila Film Festival instead of another installment of the Shake, Rattle & Roll series. The budget that would have been allotted for a Shake, Rattle & Roll film was allotted for Haunted Mansion instead. All requests of director Jun Lana were granted by Regal and the production design was deemed very expensive by Monteverde. Monteverde said that the film has the biggest budget among the horror entries at the 2015 Metro Manila Film Festival.[6]

The film was released on December 25, 2015, under Regal Entertainment as an official entry to the Metro Manila Film Festival. The film had a special screening at Greenhills Theatre Mall on December 18.[8]

• List of ghost films

• Haunted Mansion at IMDb