Ghost World | Virginia wall-clawing ghouls besetting their home in The Haunting in Connecticut.Madsen and Kyle Gallner are helpless against the wall-clawing ghouls besetting their home in The Haunting in Connecticut.
Directed by Peter Cornwell. Starring Kyle Gallner, Virginia Madsen, Elias Koteas, Martin Donovan. Opens Fri, Mar 27.
***
Holy heebie jeebies! I think my brain needs an image exorcism. I crawl into bed at night and embalmed, cursed dead people with foggy corneas flash through my mind. I mean, when it’s your job to watch every creeping corpse and every lurking ghost, when your sole responsibility is not to cover your eyes and shrink away in fear, when you have to take notes and rehash it all over again later, let’s just say Connecticut is not the only thing feeling haunted.
There’s a whole hodgepodge of scare tactics in The Haunting in Connecticut, taken from a wide range of horror subgenres, to keep you up at night: some poltergeist activity, a little possession, a few maggots, a worrisome child hanging out way past his death-time, some straight-up body desecration and a wee bit of necromancy. All of which is discovered by the Campbell family after they move into a long-retired funeral home next to the hospital where teenaged Matt (Kyle Gallner), is seeking out an experimental treatment for his cancer. There is one caveat to being included in the study: if Matt starts seeing things, he’ll be removed. So when he claims the basement, which was once the mortuary, for his bedroom and starts seeing blackened ghosts refracted in mirrors and the house melting into gooey human remains, he keeps his mouth shut.
Eventually he opens up to a reverend (Elias Koteas) who is also in for treatment. The reverend confirms that they aren’t hallucinations and that he can see these lost souls because Matt too is “walking in the valley of the shadow of death” and that he should “fear no evil.” To which I respond, “Have you seen this evil? Fear is unavoidable!”
Unfortunately, the egads! factor starts to wear off when Matt’s cousin Wendy (Amanda Crew) gets involved, does some much-needed sleuthing at the local library, and puts all the scary images into some kind of context (which I will keep to myself). By the time Connecticut slinks close to the two-hour mark, you’ll be fully jaded.
The film’s length could have been substantially reduced if director Peter Cornwell hadn’t indulged in dramatic tangents where Matt’s mom and dad cry over his cancer and fight over dad’s drinking problem. As a viewer, it’s hard to focus on the emotional ramifications of losing a child when you’re worried something is going to pop out and eat the mother while she’s crying into her pillow.
Nevertheless, The Haunting in Connecticut has an intriguing backstory pushing the present-day story forward and imperfect but strong special effects which, combined, keep you jumping. Thankfully, Gallner is not too excitable, mixing together curious, cautious, calm, and crazed to form just the right kind of character to deal with paranormal activity for two hours.
Mostly this movie is just full of icky ideas and is not truly haunting. There. Hopefully now that I’ve said my piece, I’ve expelled the corpses zombie-shuffling in my mind’s eye and I can get on with my sleep. I just hope nobody cuts off my eyelids in the middle of night and uses them to chain my soul to the earth. Did I mention this was “based on a true story”? Have fun, kiddies!
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