REVIEW: The Haunting in Connecticut (2009)
The Haunting in Connecticut
Rated: PG-13
Runtime: 92 minutes
Starring: Virginia Madsen, Kyle Gallner.
My rating: 3 stars
Your Rating (Click stars to rate):
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So this movie has been made about a thousand times. Family X moves into house Y. Add some good makeup, creepy sound effects, and some razor-sharp noises and you get a multi-million dollar box office movie.
The Haunting in Connecticut could have been much creepier. It relies on cheap jumps to thrill the audience instead of suspense. If you like that kind of thing, fine, but for someone who’s seen the tricks before, this film becomes uninventive.
As for the “true story” part, it smacks a bit unbelievable. I believe in ghosts and found myself saying, “Come on,” more than once. They seem to only care about the oldest boy because he is a cancer patient closing in on death.
At the beginning of the film, Matt Campbell (Kyle Gallner) is terminally ill and the trips to the hospital are too strenuous and far from home. The family decides to rent an abandoned house in the community.
Come to find out, it’s an old mortuary that was also used for séance experiments, opening the door to the afterlife. Lovely.
The family is horrified at the discovery, but opts to stay in the house. Matt begins to experience hallucinations and ghost encounters. The family still stays in the house.
Then the ghosts begin to visit the other family members. They still stay in the house.
Here is a question for you: Cinematically, would you rather have the ghosts mill about, thumping on walls and from behind doors, growling and such, or would you like to see them sodomize and rape members of the family? I choose the latter, not because I’m sick, but because this story would have been much more intense if director Peter Cornwell really wanted to break ground. Oh, and that’s the true story.
Instead, we get a routine haunting without much depth. The only innovative twist is the biblical carvings on the bodies of the dead.
The film paces along fine, and the acting is as good as expected from the no-names. Virginia Madsen, who plays the mother, delivers a solid performance in an otherwise unremarkable film. She seems to be the only one to show real emotion in the face of such horrific events.
I wish Cornwell opted to go for the R-rating. The alleged actual events are much more interesting than the movie. People think the family lied about the whole thing. Ray Garton, author of “In a Dark Place: The Story of a True Haunting,” said individual stories from each family member didn’t match up. It was then up to him to create the rest.
So is he the culprit of why this movie seemed to lack any lasting significance? Sort of. There’s still that bit about the ghosts raping family members, which Cornwell omitted. I suspect because more money would result from a PG-13-rating than an R.
Classic horror films haunt the public afterward. This will not. It won’t make you wonder what that creaking noise was as your house settles. It’s not going to give you nightmares. Aside from about 10 piano-chord scares, there’s nothing genuinely horrifying about it.
It’s better than the recent horror movies like Friday the 13th. The Haunting in Connecticut is good enough for what patrons are looking for.
On a canvas which so much more could have been done, this film paints a conservative picture. Three stars.
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Where it's playing?
Canton/Potsdam: Click here for current listings.
Watertown: Click here for current listings.
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