FILM REVIEW: The Haunting In Connecticut

15 • 92 mins • 27 March

Director: Peter Cornwell

Cast: Virginia Madsen, Kyle Gallner, Elias Koteas, Erik J Berg, Amanda Crew

Rating:

Although it boasts a few genuinely disquieting images (especially if you’re squeamish about eyelids), the biggest niggle with this ostensibly true story is how derivative it is. It’s as if the spirits rented DVDs of The Others, The Shining, Poltergeist, The Exorcist and roared, “We’ll have some of that!” Furniture is stacked up in the kitchen, a priest is called to cast out evil… there’s even a scene where a troubled family member hacks through a door with a fire axe.

Matt Campbell (Gallner) is weakening from cancer and his treatment takes place at a hospital miles away, so his mum (Madsen) rents a house nearby for the duration, moving the whole clan in. The building used to be a funeral parlour, occupied in the ‘20s by an undertaker who dabbled in an extreme form of spiritualism. Being so close to death, Matt has a connection with the still-not-quite-departed that results in icky visions. At first his folks blame it on the drugs, but it quickly becomes clear that none of them will get a good night’s sleep.

The fact they don’t leave stretches credibility. Why, when a bout of hide-and-seek renders the youngest kids hysterical, would you leave them on their own in the house to play again the next day? Why, after you discover a secret embalming room in the basement, would you let your son continue to hang out down there at night? Most of the scares are of the abrupt “BOO!” kind, and the director obviously adores that classic scenario where a character looks away from the mirror only to look back and see a person in the room behind them! Gasp!

The scenes of family dysfunction are convincingly acted, and the CGI on the ectoplasm and the risen corpses are tremendous. But the script is weak, serving up such cheese-topped mouthfuls as, “I was simply letting God know how precious you are to me!” Cinema-goers who think there aren’t enough haunted house mysteries in the world might still get a shiver out of this, but most will struggle to see the point – no eyelid pun intended.

Dave Bradley