Okay, confession. The first time I watched this movie, it was a couple of years ago when I was living alone in a very tiny apartment in the South Shore. I watched it alone, at night, shortly before I went to bed, and I figured it wouldn’t be all that creepy based on the trailers and ads. That particular viewing of this movie freaked me the f*** OUT. I should not have watched it alone in the dark, right before bed in a small New England structure. For the first time in years, a movie gave me issues going to sleep.
Cut to: a week ago, when I watched this movie again, for the second time. I was prepared for everything, but watched it in the daylight juuuuust in case. Let’s be clear about something here: I am NOT a squeamish person. I can watch the goriest, sickest stuff without being all that disturbed. But this is not a bloody movie. There are no psychotic killers or hideous monsters. It’s a ghost story. So what was it about this movie that affected me so much the first time I saw it? I was determined to figure it out and see if it still held all that power on the next go-round. The funny thing is, this time I’m living on the first floor of a two story house with a really creepy cellar, which for a movie like this is way WORSE if you’re the least bit impressionable.
Before I actually review this movie for you, I’ll give you the answer: it’s a pretty solid scary movie, but it wasn’t nearly as scary the second time. My theory is, the mental/emotional place I was in when I watched it the first time combined with the fact that I completely underestimated the content made for a bad combination. ALSO, there is one factor in horror movies that does give me the “heebie jeebies,” as they say. (Seriously, you guys. EVERYONE uses that phrase.) You know those moments where everything’s quiet and the room is empty and someone is alone, for example, but then the person turns their head, or glances at a window and there is suddenly something there? Yeah, that is not always cool. It sort of depends on how it’s done, but a lot of the time it makes my heart beat a little faster. (*NOTE: This does not normally include those moments in a bathroom mirror where someone opens the medicine cabinet to grab something, then closes it, and as the door swings shut there is suddenly someone or something behind them in the mirror. Because that has become very clichéd and easy to predict at this point. Or, as Paul F. Tompkins describes it, “He looks up…HIDEOUS MONSTER IN THE MIRROR!!!”)
That “suddenly something’s there in the darkness” scare is done very well in this movie. Have you been victimized by those lame videos online that are supposedly commercials or “funny” clips, but once you’re sucked in and leaning towards the screen a screaming dead girl pops up and you practically s*** your pants? “Haunting in Connecticut” is kind of a long series of those things. (Fair warning!) But, that’s not ALL it is. Like I said, this is a really decent movie. There’s actually a LOT going on plotwise, and it’s no foolin’ this time based on real events, so if I were to go into every single thing this review would be so long that you’d lose interest quickly. (That’s what she said!)
Basic Plot Description: Virginia Madsen plays the mother of a teenage son who has cancer. Matt, (played by Kyle Gallner from uhhhh, Jennifer’s Body, apparently, and the Nightmare on Elm St remake), has an understandably rough time travelling in the car to and from his painful treatments, so his mother buys a house closer to the clinic. (I think it’s in Connecticut?) The family soon learns that the house used to be a funeral home, and the basement where Matt sleeps contains a room where the bodies were “prepared.” Really freaky and violent stuff starts to happen. Everyone thinks Matt is just hallucinating at first, but then it gets worse. Matt and Mary, a close relative he trusts, research the house and find out more about its history. Apparently more was going on than just funerals. The house’s former occupants won’t leave Matt alone, and the evil threatens to harm the family.
Positive Aspects: The acting is good, Virginia Madsen especially. Besides just being a ghost story, there’s a well-developed layer of familial drama and struggle that’s also threatening their wellbeing. Matt may or may not be dying at a young age and his mother tries to remain positive but it clearly tears her apart on a daily basis. The father used to be a raging alcoholic, and all the crazy stuff that happens in the house only serves to bring this behavior out in him again. Also, Matt’s direct connection with the dead inhabitants alters his own behavior and frightens his siblings, making the rest of his family afraid of him in addition to worrying about him. On top of all of that, you also have these violent entities.
The scares, as I mentioned earlier, are pretty solid. A lot of jumps, though. I know those piss some people off. So this movie may not be everyone’s cup of tea. **IF YOUR’RE LOOKING FOR GORE, THIS IS NOT THE MOVIE FOR YOU.** There are lots of creepy and disturbing images, but not much blood. (However, there IS a somewhat brief but revolting scene involving a corpse’s eyelids and a sharp instrument.) This movie also does something I had not scene before involving “plasma” pouring out of bodily orifices during a séance. (See DVD cover/poster image included in this post for a pictorial example.) Very cool and moderately gross!
OH! I must not forget to award this movie for “Scariest Looking Dead People.” Meaning specifically the ones that are up walking around during the scares. I would go looking for images on Google, but frankly I would rather not. Trust me.
Casting Bonus: Casey Jones as a Priest! (That is, Elias Koteas.) I mean, the guy has been in a s*** ton of great projects but I think that most of us remember him most fondly as the hockey stick welding ally to the TMNT. Anyway, I know that the priest angle is clichéd in these movies, BUT, this one doesn’t just show up and say “Hey, I think your house is evil! Want help?” Matt meets him in the clinic while he’s there for his treatments because they’re both there for the same reasons, he’s a nice guy, and once stuff turns really ugly Matt gives him a call to ask for help.
Negative Aspects: There aren’t many. I know this is nitpicky and PURELY personal opinion, (like the rest of this blog isn’t, right?), but Kyle Gallner (Matt) seems to have a trademark move of making a pouty face any time he’s required to show emotion. Kind of distracting.
At first, I found it very hard to believe that Matt would continue to sleep down in the basement after all that scary stuff starts happening AND once they know that the basement was used as the mortuary. But, upon watching it again and learning more about the situation, the reasoning for that is supposedly that he was drawn in and sort of imprisoned in a way by the spirits, so it wasn’t entirely his choice. Why didn’t they just get the f*** out of that house, you ask? I wondered the same thing. They kind of cover that in the movie, but not to a satisfactory degree. I mean, Matt still needs his treatments despite what’s going on, and the family has no money left after buying this place, so they’re stuck financially. Not sure if that’s an entirely acceptable excuse or not, but there you go.
Really cool development! I actually JUST caught a two-hour documentary on the Discovery Channel about the real family and everything that actually happened to them. The movie’s pretty accurate. The entire backstory involving the specific characters of the man who ran the funeral home and his young apprentice, and the activities they did to contact spirits, etc., was entirely for the sake of the movie of course. However, the visual look of the funeral director was apparently based on what the son and other eye witnesses reported. (Eeeeeek.) The evil spirits in the house, (IF this documentary is completely true), really tormented the family a lot more than the movie even indicated. The son was a lot more withdrawn and practically possessed to the point of attacking his own family in the night and he had to be removed from the house. After that, the rest of the family was harassed by the ghosts instead. Also, when they asked a priest to come talk to them, the guy basically said, “I hear what you said, but you should just ignore it.” And then he left. What a douche! So they hired a team of investigators to come check things out and they eventually got permission from the Catholics to do an official exorcism on the house, which seemed to work, and the son’s cancer went into remission and he was okay. The documentary was pretty interesting. Some of the things that were re-enacted seemed a little extreme, but I do believe that things like that can happen so I’m not entirely skeptical. The Discovery Channel wouldn’t LIE to us, right? (…..right?)
The best part of it, though, was that there’s one thing in the movie that happens when someone is attacked in the shower and nearly suffocated by the shower curtain. If this documentary is accurate and not phoney balones, then that ACTUALLY HAPPENED, you guys. Oh. My. God. Remind me to never live in a haunted house.
I give this movie 4 out of 5 pints of blood. Good story, lots of startling moments, and creepy images. Not my favorite sort of horror, but it’s good for the type of movie it is.
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