THE HAUNTING IN CONNECTICUT (2009)

Studio:       Lionsgate
Director:    Peter Cornwell
Writer:       Adam Simon, Tim Metcalfe
Producer:  Paul Brooks, Andrew Trapani, Daniel Farrands, Wendy Rhoads
Stars:     Virginia Madsen, Kyle Gallner, Martin Donovan, Amanda Crew, Elias Koteas

Review Score:

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Summary:

When the Campbell family moves into a house that once served as a funeral parlor, its dark history of necromancy plagues their cancer-stricken son in the form of a sinister haunting. 

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Synopsis:     Show/Hide Spoilers

June 1987 – To ease the burden of transporting their ill son Matthew to his cancer treatments in Goatswood, Sara Campbell and her husband Peter agree to get a rental house closer to the specialist hospital. In addition to their other son Billy, the cash-strapped couple also cares for their nieces Wendy and Mary.

Sara drives past one home as the owner puts up a “For Sale” sign, although he mentions that it has “a bit of a history.” Matt is in so much pain on this particular car ride that Mary decides to move into the house immediately. On the first night, Matt sees a man reflected in the television screen and dreams of a disfigured reflection on a window in the basement.

The next day, Mary finds a hidden stash of vintage death photos that she throws away. Matt decides to make his bedroom in the basement, where there is another room that they cannot get into. While Mary mops the basement floor, Matt has a vision that the mop water is blood. As Matt sets the table, a stack of plates reappears in the cabinet before they appear to fall and break by themselves. Matt worries about telling his doctor that he is seeing things because he could lose his eligibility for the cancer treatment program. He later has a dream of a bearded man carving writing into the skin of a dead body and removing its eyelids while a boy watches.

Matt continues to have other visions and eventually finds his way into the locked room in the basement. He puts his little brother on a gurney in the center of the room and spins him as if possessed while having visions of the man and boy replacing bodies in coffins with sandbags. Peter enters and notices that the room is loaded with funerary equipment. He then argues with his wife about the house’s history. During their discussion, she references Peter’s struggle with alcoholism.

When hands are clasped during grace at the dinner table, Matt has a vision of the boy, whose name is Jonah, conducting a séance. After a vision of crabs crawling on him, Matt befriends fellow patient Reverend Nicholas Popescu at the hospital. While playing hide-and-seek with his brother and cousin, Matt has a vision of Jonah trying to escape from the bearded man. Matt becomes locked in the funeral room where he sees multiple figures covered in skin-carved writing. He then calls Nicholas for counsel.

The next visions are of fire and Jonah’s charred body. When the rest of the family returns home, Mary finds all of the wooden chairs and tables stacked together. Matt is crumpled in the corner having worn his fingers bloody by scratching the walls. Peter reveals that he sold his truck to help pay the mounting bills. Both parents struggle to keep themselves together.

During another game of hide-and-seek, Billy has a vision of a man while trapped in the dumb waiter. Mary breaks through a floorboard in the attic where the teenagers find a box of strange photos and a collection of eyelids. Matt says the photos are of Jonah, the boy he has been seeing in his visions.

Wendy does research at the library and learns that the bearded man is Ramsey Aickman and their home was once his mortuary. Aickman performed psychical research using Jonah as a medium for séances held in the house. Five people including Aickman were later found dead following a séance where Jonah went missing. In the 1950’s, highway construction necessitated the displacement of multiple gravesites. It was then discovered that over 100 coffins were filled with sandbags and the bodies were missing. Wendy and Matt consult Nicholas about their findings. Nicholas says the eyelids were used for necromancy. He assumes that removing the eyelids forced the dead bodies to see something that Aickman wanted them to witness in death. Matt has another vision of Jonah conducting a séance in which ectoplasm streams from his mouth. Sara comes come and angrily dismisses Nicholas and his ideas.

Wendy starts to have strange visions, as does Sara. Peter comes home drunk and removes light bulbs from several fixtures because of his anger over all the lights being on. Later, the lights flicker even without bulbs. Sara has Nicholas come back to the house. Nicholas finds Jonah’s remains hidden in the crematorium and removes them from the house. He believes the house is now at peace.

Matt awakens to find the strange writing carved into his skin. Sara follows him to the hospital. Nicholas has a vision of Jonah’s charred body in the backseat of his car. He then leaves a message for Sara. He realizes that Aickman removed the eyelids so that the dead would be unseen and their souls are trapped in the house. Jonah was not evil, but rather was attempting to free those souls. Now that Jonah has been removed from the house, all that is left is the souls’ rage.

Wendy is nearly suffocated by a shower curtain. Peter and Sara discover that Matt has escaped his hospital room. Matt comes back to the house with an axe and has the other children leave. He then tears open the walls to reveal all of the stolen bodies before setting fire to the house and freeing the spirits. Sara is able to pull him out of the flames.

An epilogue claims that the house was rebuilt and resold. Matt recovered from cancer and no further disturbances have been reported at the home.

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Review:

Reviews that take the longest to write are the ones for mediocre movies.  Think about any average film and a time when a friend may have asked what you thought about it.  I am talking about the kind of movie where your opinion was, “it wasn’t that bad” or, “I guess it was okay.”  Now imagine having to come up with 650-1000 more words on the subject.

That is the challenge in front of me with “The Haunting in Connecticut.”  Neither particularly bad, nor particularly good, “Haunting” is merely unremarkable.  Since I am not above terribly pedestrian metaphors, “Haunting” is to horror films what Chinese food is to cuisine.  It does the job fast and simple, although you can find the same thing just about anywhere and you will crave something more satisfying not long afterwards.

The ghost story told here is adequately serviceable, if not all too familiar.  A family facing a financial crunch moves into a home that hides a troubled history.  The hauntings drive one member of the family to madness while the others enlist the aid of a clergyman to help them confront the malevolent forces that now consume their lives.  That plot used here is the same one that worked in 1978 and in 2005 for both versions of the “The Amityville Horror.”  Except George Lutz has been supplanted with Matthew Campbell (Kyle Gallner), a boy whose struggle against cancer brings him to death’s door, where he is susceptible to the spirits that drift between the realms of the living and the dead.

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"The Shining," "The Amityville Horror," and now "The Haunting in Connecticut" have taught me to keep axes far away from anyone possessed by a haunted house.

Tending to Matthew are his long-suffering and financially burdened parents, Sara and Peter (Virginia Madsen and Martin Donovan).  Mother and father are more than casual set dressing.  As with the other family members portrayed, Peter and Sara earn sympathy through authentic character development.  Their marriage appears committed, albeit strained from the mounting bills of maintaining two residences and caring for an ill child.  Despite their hardships, they have also taken it upon themselves to care for two nieces.  Mix those ingredients in the blender of a haunted house and it is little wonder that they soon buckle under pressure.

Peter struggles with alcoholism.  If this is not clear when Sara makes a casual mention of his past as a drunk, it should be crystal by the way a neon Rolling Rock sign reflects in his windshield while ogling two bright smiling people toasting a pair of frosty cold ones in a bar window.  For better or for worse, “Haunting” is anything but subtle when it comes to making sure everyone can follow along.

The family members all have a moment to win over the audience with their likability.  Wendy earns her keep by happily looking after the young ones while the parents work.  Little Mary is too cute with the way she cheerfully wrestles her cousin and plays make-believe with her dolls.  “Haunting” finely establishes a three-dimensional cast, although it misses opportunities to play off that sympathy when only one of them is in any real danger most of the time.

Because Matthew’s condition makes him the only one prone to creepy visions, he is also the only person in tune with the spirits haunting the house.  For much of the movie, there is never a sense that anyone is in any danger from the spirits except for Matthew, although the family may be in some danger from him.  “Haunting” seems to figure this out about two-thirds in, when the rest of the family is finally let in on Matthew’s nightmare and the terror starts gripping everyone.  Once the home’s past as a den of necromancy comes front and center, the hauntings literally start coming out of the woodwork.

From the references alone, writers Adam Simon and Tim Metcalfe are at least familiar with how others have successfully created suspense from horror.  The story takes place in the non-extant town of Goatswood, which can be nothing other than a reference to the same-named Cthulhu Mythos contribution of author Ramsey Campbell.  The sinister mortician who unleashed the evil forces in the first place is named Ramsey Aickman.  Probably a nod both to Campbell and to weird fiction writer Robert Aickman.  And among the strange writings carved into the flesh of a dead body are the words “suspiria” and “tenebrum.”  The latter is close enough to “Tenebrae” that I have to infer an intentional Dario Argento reference.

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                                             The evil mortician was an Argento fan.

The bulk of the script has the requisite nuts-and-bolts to constitute a straightforward possession story.  Strange things happen.  Initial assumptions are nothing out of the ordinary.  The true history is uncovered.  Things go from bad to worse.  An expert is consulted.  As glib as it sounds, if you’ve seen one…

With “The Haunting in Connecticut,” the “possession” sub-genre of horror takes neither a step back, nor a step forward.  It follows the rules and sticks to the accepted formula.  Sharp audio stings accent the jumps.  Unknown horrors lurk under the bed.  Everyone involved does everything expected to combat the evil (except move out of the house).  And any details not provided by a character are filled in with a montage of newspaper clippings.  “Haunting” plays it safe and thus becomes all it ever could: a risk-free thriller that is just about average.

Click here for a review of the sequel, "The Haunting in Connecticut 2: Ghosts of Georgia."

Review Score:  50

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