The Haunting in Connecticut
(C or 2/4 stars)
Boo! 'Haunting in Connecticut', directed by Peter Cornwell, tells the "true story" of a family who rented an old Victorian house in Connecticut near the clinic where their teen son was being treated for cancer. They are the Campbell family. Matt (Kyle Gallner) is the sickly teen undergoing experimental cancer treatments. His parents, Sara & Peter (Virginia Madsen, Martin Donovan), don't have the happiest marriage. Not only is Peter an alcoholic, but he can only visit his family on weekends (nothing like a haunting without dad around). And Sara is riding a fine line of (in)sanity through it all. Also living with Matt are his younger brother & 2 female cousins. The house they've rented used to be a funeral parlor (of course). And as soon as they move in, Matt begins seeing & hearing things; dark, supernatural things. Things that are scary as Hell (trust me). The 1st obvious explanation would be that he's hallucinating; due to the cancer treatments.
But the types of violent noises & visions he's experiencing are way too surreal to be hallucinations. With time, he gets in contact with Reverend Popescu (Elias Koteas), a religious man who's also dying of cancer; and the 2 of them investigate the odd goings-on in the foregone years of this haunted house; disturbing events which involved mystical seances, ectoplasms, & 100 missing corpses (we see these inconceivable acts in flashback sequences). Because the Reverend & Matt are near death, they can see the spirits (who are haunting them) much clearer than the rest of the skeptical family. And before long, the s*it hits the fan. Near-death escapes, scary images, trap doors, fires, chases, etc. What is the mystery of this house? What does a young, clairvoyant boy named Jonah have to do with it all? Can Matt release these 100 ghosts from their limbo? Will they kill his innocent family? Or will Matt even survive his own cancerous illness?
'Haunting in Connecticut' is not a very good ghost story. It isn't a very good film, period. But what it isn't is bad. There are more than enough jumps, jolts, & visual scares to get you on the edge of your seat. I wouldn't say anything is uniquely terrifying. But the 'horror' in this horror film is decent. The movie, because it's based on a true story, is handled with a modicum of care & concern for the people this happened to. The acting (for a horror film) is actually quite solid. I think Kyle Gallner is terrific & thoroughly convincing as the utterly sick, downbeat, confused, scared young man who should be scared (only) about dying from cancer; not for having to survive a house of horrors. I really felt for him. And Virginia Madsen realistically depicts a mom who's both stricken by sadness over her son, & genuinely befuddled about how to handle the haunted house situation. She doesn't know where to run or how to cope.
The reason why this film probably won't be remembered is because it's just too 'standard'. The screenwriting is somewhat confusing; in the divulging of the mystery of what happened in the house in the past. If I don't fully understand 'why' the house is haunted ... how does that work for me? I also found it weird that 70% of the movie was about the haunting, & 30% was about the domestic melodrama surrounding mom/drunk dad/sick Matt. It's like, which story do you want to tell, guys? Moving on. The dialogue is fairly bland. The characterizations are bland. The ending is bland, etc.. I mean, the movie is atmospheric, but there's no true tension in the drama. Horror films need tension & suspense to be 100% effective. Overall, I recommend this film to pseudo-horror fans who claim they love horror, but settle for stuff like this. When all is said & done, I kinda dug it. But it helped that I watched this at night, in the dark, by myself.
But the types of violent noises & visions he's experiencing are way too surreal to be hallucinations. With time, he gets in contact with Reverend Popescu (Elias Koteas), a religious man who's also dying of cancer; and the 2 of them investigate the odd goings-on in the foregone years of this haunted house; disturbing events which involved mystical seances, ectoplasms, & 100 missing corpses (we see these inconceivable acts in flashback sequences). Because the Reverend & Matt are near death, they can see the spirits (who are haunting them) much clearer than the rest of the skeptical family. And before long, the s*it hits the fan. Near-death escapes, scary images, trap doors, fires, chases, etc. What is the mystery of this house? What does a young, clairvoyant boy named Jonah have to do with it all? Can Matt release these 100 ghosts from their limbo? Will they kill his innocent family? Or will Matt even survive his own cancerous illness?
'Haunting in Connecticut' is not a very good ghost story. It isn't a very good film, period. But what it isn't is bad. There are more than enough jumps, jolts, & visual scares to get you on the edge of your seat. I wouldn't say anything is uniquely terrifying. But the 'horror' in this horror film is decent. The movie, because it's based on a true story, is handled with a modicum of care & concern for the people this happened to. The acting (for a horror film) is actually quite solid. I think Kyle Gallner is terrific & thoroughly convincing as the utterly sick, downbeat, confused, scared young man who should be scared (only) about dying from cancer; not for having to survive a house of horrors. I really felt for him. And Virginia Madsen realistically depicts a mom who's both stricken by sadness over her son, & genuinely befuddled about how to handle the haunted house situation. She doesn't know where to run or how to cope.
The reason why this film probably won't be remembered is because it's just too 'standard'. The screenwriting is somewhat confusing; in the divulging of the mystery of what happened in the house in the past. If I don't fully understand 'why' the house is haunted ... how does that work for me? I also found it weird that 70% of the movie was about the haunting, & 30% was about the domestic melodrama surrounding mom/drunk dad/sick Matt. It's like, which story do you want to tell, guys? Moving on. The dialogue is fairly bland. The characterizations are bland. The ending is bland, etc.. I mean, the movie is atmospheric, but there's no true tension in the drama. Horror films need tension & suspense to be 100% effective. Overall, I recommend this film to pseudo-horror fans who claim they love horror, but settle for stuff like this. When all is said & done, I kinda dug it. But it helped that I watched this at night, in the dark, by myself.