The Haunting in Connecticut

Boo! It’s a ghost! Or even worse!!! MANY GHOSTS (AND THEY HAVE NO EYELIDS!!!!). Ghosts are a fun thing to be fascinated and afraid of as a child. I remember watching Tobe Hooper’s (or more like Steven Spielberg’s) Poltergeist and thinking it was one of the scariest yet greatest movies ever made. Now I just think the film is mildly entertaining in a nostalgic sort of way. Other than Poltergeist and Stanley Kubrick’s masterpiece The Shining, I cannot think of any other ghost film that ever interested me, which I believe is a shame. Why can’t some half competent filmmaker direct a decent ghost flick? Better yet, why did I bother watching The Haunting in Connecticut?


I watched The Haunting in Connecticut because I wanted to appease a young and beautiful lady. Also, one cannot forget that marvelous mad dog mAQ was once again able to use his deviant magic and get us into the film screening free of charge. Aside from another couple, my lady friend and I were the only two in the theater. I must admit the vacant atmosphere was perfect for seeing a horror and especially a ghost film. It is great being at a movie theater screening without having to deal with a loudmouthed virtual gang (or real gangs) of noisy would-be rappers. Seeing as The Haunting in Connecticut was a ghost film, I can now understand how a group of rebels in white ghostlike costumes used to scare the Negro population. I guess the only thing that can scare a spook is a spook. Unfortunately, The Haunting In Connecticut was not the type of film that could scare a cracker unless we're talking about those spiritual types.


Before seeing The Haunting in Connecticut, I watched a Discovery channel documentary on the “true story.” Yes, believe it or not, a real teenager with cancer and his family was haunted by ghosts. The house that the family moved into used to be a mortuary. Unsurprisingly, the family at first believed that the boy with cancer hallucinated his visions of ghosts due to the drugs (which cause hallucinations as a side effect) he was taking. When the real “victims” of ghosts appear on the documentary, they're in the dark so no one can see what they look like. When they talk, it is apparent that this family is the “true believer” spiritual type that is afraid of using their intellect. Sort of like when you’re a child and you can trick your mind into believe things that are kind of cool at that early age yet pathetic if you’re older than 13 years old. The family featured in the movie The Haunting in Connecticut seem to be up about ½ a knot in intelligence.


So what does the film The Haunting in Connecticut have to offer? It has a bunch of flickering editing (during the sepia vintage séance scenes) that is kind of fun in the movie theater (but will probably lose most of it’s power on DVD). Other than that, nothing else really stuck out except maybe the Robert De Niro look-a-like that played a terminally ill minister. The Haunting in Connecticut is a fairly banal modern ghost story that can be compared to a barely lit candle that attempts to flicker but instead burns out. But then again, with a film like The Haunting in Connecticut what could one actually expect?

-Ty E