LITERAL REMAINS

The tagline for The Haunting In Connecticut is, “Some things cannot be explained.”  The main problem with this movie is it tries to explain.

Sara Campbell drives her cancer stricken son, Matt, eight hours from home every day to the hospital for trial treatments.  The treatments are bad enough, and the drive only adds to the pain.  Sara and her husband, Peter, decide to rent a house closer to the hospital.  Sara finally finds a house that is perfect: big, spacious, plenty of room for them and their other two children and niece, and the rent is cheap.  To explain the cheap rent, the landlord only says that the house has a history.  While moving in and tidying up the place, Sara discovers the house was a former funeral home.

Soon enough, Matt begins to see things.  Are they real, or are they side effects brought on by his medicines?  Matt enlists the help of a minister, a fellow cancer patient, and they discover that more than funerals occured at the home.  The owner conducted seances, and one seance flew out of control, killing five and causing one to simply just vanish.  Further investigating reveals that numerous bodies were not buried, but stowed away somewhere on the property.

The Haunting In Connecticut makes use of “boo” moments to full effect.  Its simple little scare tactics manage to create an air of creepiness and suspense; you never know when something is just going to pop out of nowhere.  Sadly, its when the movie moves into plot territory, trying to explain the haunting, that it loses direction.

This is a good movie, but it falls apart at the end.  It’s full of cliches and standard ghost story/haunted house moments, but manages to make them all entertaining.  The first two-thirds of the movie are the best, the last act needs work.

3.5 out of 5
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