Movie Review : The Haunting in Connecticut (2009)

•Genre: Horror, Suspense/Thriller
•Running Time: 92 min.
•Director: Peter Cornwell
•Writer: Adam Simon, Tim Metcalfe
•Cast: Virginia Madsen, Kyle Gallner, Martin Donovan, Elias Koteas, Amanda Crew, D.W. Brown, Sarah Constible, Matt Kippen, John B. Lowe

Synopsis

Based on a chilling true story, Lionsgate's "The Haunting in Connecticut" charts one family's terrifying, real-life encounter with the dark forces of the supernatural. When the Campbell family moves to upstate Connecticut, they soon learn that their charming Victorian home has a disturbing history: not only was the house a transformed funeral parlor where inconceivable acts occurred, but the owner's clairvoyant son Jonah served as a demonic messenger, providing a gateway for spiritual entities to crossover. Now, unspeakable terror awaits, when Jonah, the boy who communicated with the powerful dark forces of the supernatural, returns to unleash a new kind of horror on the innocent and unsuspecting family.

Movie Review

The Haunting in Connecticut (2009)

A Family Plot

Spinning another based-on-actual-events tale of a family ejected from its home by angry spirits, “The Haunting in Connecticut” gives you the creeps, the giggles and the groans in almost equal measure.

When the Campbells (headed by Virginia Madsen and Martin Donovan) discover that their rickety Connecticut rental is a former funeral parlor, it’s left to the family’s terminally ill son (Kyle Gallner, earnestly moping) to handle the disgruntled former clients. Apparently their mortician liked to do more than just embalm.

Aside from the presence of the usual corny cleric (here played on the level by Elias Koteas), the movie refers to “Psycho,” “The Shining” and “The Exorcist” by way of Amityville. But these mnemonics are far less distracting than the endlessly prompting, screeching score. Stories like this need hush to work: the rustle of a shroud and the dry whisper of ghostly conversation can’t compete with shrieking violins.

Directing his first feature, Peter Cornwell delivers some genuinely grisly imagery: a rusty tin filled with eyelid trimmings — their lashes still attached — and a spew of brocadelike ectoplasm. Most unsettling of all are the peaceful photographs of dead people that link the movie’s parallel worlds; as the Icelandic filmmaker Hrabba Gunnarsdottir proved in her mesmerizing documentary “Corpus Camera,” images of the deceased can provide a great deal more than closure.

Credit by : MRQE SITE