The Haunting in Connecticut

The Haunting in Connecticut is a 2009 horror film directed by Peter Cornewell and inspired by the real events. The plot tells the story of Matt Campbell, being a cancer patient, is forced to move to a location that is close to the hospital in Connecticut. Arriving at the house Matt realizes that there are presences but that only he can see. The film is a great underrated horror where there is an air of anxiety thanks to the excellent actors and scenes of fear that never exaggerate.

There's a decent little story at the core of this movie. The family drama primarily deals with a family's struggle when one of their kids is diagnosed with cancer. The strongest aspect is definitely the mother's love and strength while dealing with her son's ever-worsening condition. It tries some other stuff like the grief-ridden alcoholic father angle, but the rest of it is underdeveloped. Even the 'barely scrapping by' element gets lost at some point. Strong performances make up for the fact that this is barely above Lifetime original movie quality in terms of production. You can tell there wasn't much money funneled into this. What really holds The Haunting in Connecticut back is that it's so generic as a horror movie. Every trick it has up it's sleeve has been seen elsewhere countless times before. Never before has a house filled with dead people felt so lifeless. Far from the first horror movie to boast that it's "based on a true story," the plot here serves as an example of why not many people actually believe in this stuff. First off the supposed actual events themselves have been met with much scrutiny. I doubt this movie, which supposedly deviates even farther from reality than the book, will do anything to persuade people otherwise. You can literally see in every scene how the family could have faked the entire thing. The way any and all evidence to support their claims was lost at the end of the movie is all too convenient. The extra added monologue where the mother character says that doesn't she doesn't care whether the audience believes her or not because she knows what happened only makes it harder to take any of it seriously. Just going off of this movie, I've got to say I think the story is complete crap. So many overused scare tactics have been borrowed here to no avail. It also ruins the already shaky credibility of the so-called "true haunting." There is a little something here in terms of a surprisingly great cast and likable family drama that brings actual emotion to the table. Something is largely in part due to the excellent performances from Virginia Madsen and Kyle Gallner as the two leads. Unfortunately those elements are kind of wasted in such a bland and dull horror movie. It's a bunch of borrowed parts that were taken from better and much scarier films. You should go watch one of those instead.

I thought the acting was pretty decent and as such, I feel quite bad rating it 5/10, but for me, this was one of those films that you forget after it's finished. I think the reason behind it being so forgettable is pretty simple: the film relied almost 100% on jump scares and so once you've scared the crap out of the person sitting next to you by unexpectedly jumping out of your seat and perhaps needing a quick underwear change, you pretty much instantly forget that moment where something big and scary was loudly thrust into your face. A phrase that could quite easily be misinterpreted...anyway! On the whole, it was okay. Although it was, in a way, pretty inevitable I did find the ending quite disappointing. This film was in no way subtle or clever enough to really scare me and stick in my mind, hence the fairly low score. But it was relatively entertaining, it wasn't a monumental waste of time and it would be a fairly decent choice with a few friends over.

Horror like every other typical horror. Nothing so special about it. Just for wasting time with friends maybe.

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]