A serviceable ghost story for low-expectation horror night, this ‘true’ story barely gets by on a capable cast and decent atmosphere, but disappoints when relying on questionable CGI to provide the scares. As the best of the genre makes clear, i.e. the original ‘The Haunting’, it’s what you don’t see that can truly prove unsettling.
A decent hit this past Spring (shamefully making more than Sam Raimi’s ‘Drag Me to Hell’, the best horror film in ages), a slick trailer brought the kids in and for teens no doubt unaware of such films like ‘The Innocents’ and ‘The Changeling’, it likely gets the job done. There’s definitely a solid idea here in that our cancer-ridden teen protagonist, close to death himself, can only see into the unknown.
Matt (Kyle Gallner), seeking cancer treatment, moves into a house closer to the clinic with his understandably concerned mom Sarah (Virginia Madsen) along with his younger siblings and niece while his father Peter (Martin Donovan) has to stay behind for his job. Strapped for cash, the house they move into is a deserted home with “a bit of history”.
Slowly explained, it appears the Connecticut house was once a funeral home where strange things began to happen and the results of those strange things are now sticking around to wrap up unfinished business. Moving into the basement to have some room for himself (and thoughtfully not allowing his family to hear his vomiting sessions), Matt quickly begins to have visions of a charred corpse, clearly not happy about his exit from life.
All the haunted house staples are here from creaking floors to the religious man who can offer advice. Mostly following the ‘Amityville’ template, we also get a father who has a bit of trouble controlling his alcoholism (although this plot thread is as quickly abandoned as it was introduced). Debut director Peter Cromwell has talent but he mostly seems to get by on the ‘suffice’ school of filmmaking without really going above and beyond.
It’s a shame really as the cast seemed to be willing and ready to go. Kyle Gallner, Virginia Madsen, Martin Donovan and Elias Koteas (as the clergyman) all provided good perfs, but the script didn’t give them much to work with. Another sore spot is that effective atmosphere is generated only to give in to tiring jump scares and snicker-inducing unnecessary CGI. The film is not terrible just lazy and seemingly content to be the go-to horror movie of the weekend for teen girls.
The AVC 1080p encode is mostly effective, certainly true to the source. It varies from sharp and detailed to grainy and soft but the inconsistencies seem intentional. No mistaking it for standard-def but not the best high-def candy of its genre either. The 7.1 DTS-HD track does a great job immersing in you the atmosphere, however, with pounding surrounds and nice clean dialogue.
Presented with both the theatrical PG-13 cut and an unrated version, the unrated version definitely seems to contain more gore than a PG-13 would allow with unflinching shots of eyelids being cut off, etc.
Starting special features off are two audio commentaries, the first from director Peter Cornwell, producer Andy Trapani, screenwriter Adam Simon and editor Tom Elkins. Second is Cornwell joining actors Virginia Madsen and Kyle Gallner which is the livelier track.
‘Two Dead Boys: The Making of’ runs fifteen minutes and is a better version of your standard making-of with some intriguing production stories. ‘Memento Mori: The History of Post-Mortem Photography’ is about ten minutes long and is a cool look at the titular topic.
‘Anatomy of a Haunting’ is 12 minutes looks at some real-life hauntings and makes for another interesting watch. Most notable is the almost 45-minute ‘The Fear is Real: Reinvestigating the Haunting’ which takes a look at the real story the film is based on with newsreel footage and interviews. It’s intriguing to see what the origin story was and how it got filtered to the big screen.
Six ‘Deleted Scenes’, some ‘Trailers’ and some BD-Live features tagged ‘LG Live’ which presents ‘gadgets’ on your screen showing LG movie news, local weather and time. This can be toggled on and off at any time during the menus or film. You can also download movies and post to Twitter and Facebook.
Some cool stuff here and I wouldn’t mind other studios following suit on some of these ideas. Who doesn’t want to push a button and have weather and time updates pop right up? A Digital Copy of the film rounds things out.
My overall opinion of the film is that it’s watchable but almost immediately forgettable. The cast gives it their all and the director knows how to set up a shot but there’s little to nothing here that’s bringing something new to the table. Video is ok but audio and special features are a cut above so I say give it a rent.
The Haunting in Connecticut [Blu-ray] is now available at Amazon . Visit the DVD database for more information.
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