The Ostensibly Fact-Based 2009 Stinker The Haunting in Connecticut is on Some Old Bullshit
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I would have more respect for 2009 stinker The Haunting in Connecticut if it opened with the words, “None of this horse shit happened, OBVIOUSLY!” That disclaimer is wildly unnecessary, however, as anyone with a halfway-functioning bullshit detector would be able to see that The Haunting in Connecticut is a work of pure fiction.
Instead, The Haunting in Connecticut is one of those movies where the infuriatingly bogus claim, “Based on a true story” causes you to reflexively yell at the screen “No it’s not!” even before the film begins.
Ed and Lorraine Warren, the self-styled paranormal investigators and wildly successful professional liars who inspired The Conjuring franchise claimed that the house where The Haunting in Connecticut takes place was full of demons, bad mojo and sinister vibes but then they were pathological fibbers and hopelessly full of shit.
If the Warrens said something was true you could safely assume it was false and everything about The Haunting in Connecticut feels hopelessly fake and contrived.
Virginia Madsen delivers a characteristically rock solid performance as Sara Campbell, a devoted wife and mother whose life revolves around her Cancer-stricken teen son Matt’s treatments.
#Indigestion
The family wants to find a house near the hospital where Matt is getting potentially life-saving care and they find the perfect spot, a suspiciously vast and even more suspiciously cheap house out in the country with a bit of drawback.
It’s one of those unfortunate Murder Houses you see on television where unspeakable horrors occurred, innocent souls died unimaginably savage deaths and the souls of the damned howl for vengeance.
Other than that, it’s a pretty nice place. Lots of closets. Plenty of bathrooms. Extremely convenient.
When my dad sold real estate he used to say that the three most important factors in house buying were location, location and location. In The Haunting in Connecticut, the house’s location is both its biggest strength and its biggest curse, literally.
It’s close to the hospital but it’s also in the same place where an evil mortuary owner practiced necromancy and conducted sinister seances. And it’s filled with corpses.
Oh, and it comes with its own torture dungeon, which is a big plus if you’re a sadist with no concern for human life but otherwise not for everyone.
If you’ve got a family, for example, you’re probably going to want a house without even a modest torture dungeon. You’re also going to want to not move into a Murder House, even for a little bit, but we all make sacrifices for our children and sometimes that means moving into a Murder House with a torture dungeon for the noblest of reasons.
Sara’s blue collar husband Pete (Martin Donovan) doesn’t realize that they’ve moved into a Murder House until he sees its torture dungeon. The Missus apparently felt that was something she could just kind of slip by him but he finds out and is chagrined.
Donovan is a fine actor best known for his iconic work in the early films of Hal Hartley but he is miscast as an earthy laborer who relaxes by shredding on his electric guitar in his elaborate electric guitar room and is a recovering alcoholic solely so that he can fall sloppily off the wagon when things go haywire in the last act.
Because Matt is so sick that at one point we’re told that he literally could die any minute he has a special connection with the dead and the spirit world. As Matt’s wise mentor in spirituality Reverend Nicholas Popescu (Elias Koteas, picking up a paycheck) informs him, the the line between life and death is solid for most but fluid and ever-changing for those on the very edge of dying.
Matt is tormented by visions of death and suffering, of the unspeakable yet PG-13 agony of the poor souls who perished in the Murder House of Death. The Haunting in Connecticut takes place in 1987 yet is maddeningly devoid of a single period detail beyond the heroes not Googling the history of their murder house.
Instead they do some old-fashioned investigating and figure out what happened to make this particular Murder House so murdery and whether or not it has anything to do with its torture dungeon.
The Haunting in Connecticut favors forgettable CGI, jump scares and frenetic editing over practical effects, atmosphere and genuine tension. It’s a scare-free horror movie that feels completely fictional because it is completely fictional despite its laughable claims.
The idea that any of this actually happened is preposterous but it needs the transparent lie that it’s based on a true story because it otherwise has next to nothing going for it.
The Haunting in Connecticut’s greatest strength is Madsen. In a wholly phony, pandering and manipulative affair Madsen finds her character’s emotional core and, through craftsmanship alone, ekes some truth out of a uniquely phony exploitation movie.
Madsen captures the sadness, grief, despair, vulnerability and ultimately steely resolve of a very good mother understandably terrified that at any moment she could walk into a room and find her son dead from Cancer.
I like watching scary movies in October for Halloween but The Haunting in Connecticut serves as yet another dispiriting reminder that horror movies pumped out by studios often suck.
Last year I wrote up another The Haunting for this column which means that Virginia Madsen has appeared in two different sub-par horror movies with the word “The Haunting” in their title. Madsen is a horror icon thanks to Candyman but working regularly in the field unfortunately ensured that she also appeared in a LOT of junk like this.
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