DVD Review- The Haunting in Connecticut (2009)

Virginia Madsen ponders her choice of realtor in The Haunting in Connecticut.

The great musician Tom Waits once said, "If you're watching a really bad movie and somebody turns to you and says, 'You know, this is a true story,' does it improve the film in any way?  Not really.  It's a bad movie."  The Haunting in Connecticut, like The Amityville Horror before it, is based on a supposedly true story of a family who moves into a haunted house.

Haunted house movies have been a staple of cinema for over 90 years, dating back to 1917's The Ghost House.  In literature, the demonic domicile concept goes back centuries, featured in books such as The Haunted House by Charles Dickens and the short story "The Fall of the House of Usher" by Edgar Allan Poe.  The current decade has certainly had its fair share of popular cinematic home hauntings, including a remake of The Amityville Horror, Stephen King's 1408, and the animated Monster House.

The Haunting in Connecticut introduces us to the Campbell family and focuses on teenager Matt, played by Kyle Gallner (Veronica Mars, Smallville), who is being treated for cancer.  He is undergoing a new experimental therapy at a remote hospital in Connecticut, which means he has to endure long car rides while suffering from the effects of his treatment.  The always reliable Virginia Madsen (Sideways, Candyman) stars as Matt's mother, who starts looking for a house to rent that's close to this hospital.  She finds one that seems perfect, and has a rather low rent, but, as the landlord warns, "It does have a bit of a history."  After the family moves in, Matt starts experiencing disturbing hallucinations (which may be caused by his medication), and soon the family learns that their new dwelling used to be a funeral home.  From there the family's homelife descends into supernatural chaos, with members being tormented by flicking lights, flayed corpses, and, of course, ectoplasm.

This isn't an entirely bad movie, but it certainly isn't a very good one either.  It's never boring since the film is plagued with stingers galore, such as when apparitions suddenly appear in mirrors accompanied by scary music cues.  Many of the ghosts that appear throughout the movie look like extras from a Tool video.  The dramatic scenes tend to veer towards the melodramatic, much like you'd find in a Lifetime movie.  Elias Koteas (who for some will always be Casey Jones in the original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie) plays a particularly thankless role as a fellow cancer patient who is not only a reverend but also has some experience with the supernatural.  There is also a ridiculous library montage scene where Matt and his cousin learn everything they need to know about the house's horrible history.

The Haunting in Connecticut was a box office success, and not only is a sequel on the way but a third movie also, with the focus being true-life hauntings in other states (New York and Georgia).  Recommended only for fans of jump scares and horror cliches.  Want to see a truly great modern haunted house film?  Go rent Poltergeist instead.  It's not based on a true story, but that really doesn't matter.

The DVD features on The Haunting in Connecticut are plentiful.  There are four featurettes: "Two Dead Boys: Making of The Haunting in Connecticut," "The Fear is Real: Re-Investigating the Haunting" (which looks into the events that inspired the film, and is actually better than the movie), "Memento Mori: The History of Post Mortem Photography," and "Anatomy of a Haunting."  There are also two commentaries, deleted scenes, and the trailer.  The DVD is available unrated/extended or in the original PG-13 cut (the differences, noted in one of the commentaries, are minimal at best).  Also available on Blu-ray.

For more information: The Haunting in Connecticut

Rent it from Netflix: The Haunting in Connecticut

Or go rent Poltergeist instead: Poltergeist