"Haunting in Connecticut" is a conventional haunting movie. No doubt it has cinematic ties to "The Amityville Horror," which I haven't seen yet (bad horror fan, bad). But over the last few years, I have seen several conventional horror films, and so much about them has been sub-par that it was a pleasure to walk into a conventional haunting movie and not feel like I was somehow let down.
In particular, the acting seems to suffer tremendously in conventional horror films, but "Haunting in Conn." had three solid main actors who carried the movie.
Virginia Madsen, who has horror cult ties through her work in "Candyman," is not one of those shrill, stupid mothers that one might see in a PG-13 horror about a family being attacked. She plays her part with sincerity and strength, as an actor and a person. At every point of the movie, it is hard to tell whether she is even acting, and that's the mark of quality right there. And honey, she's still got it. That kind of it.
Kyle Gallner plays Matt, the teenager sick with terminal cancer. You may know his face from a number of guest starring roles in television shows. I know he's made an appearance in just about all the shows I've been watching lately. He's commonly typecast as the troubled teen, and that's because he's damn good at it. Like Madsen, Gallner never forces the acting. You don't feel like slapping him upside the head and telling him to grow up like you sometimes want to do to teen actors doing the troubled teen riff. Gallner doesn't do emo. He's just troubled. Because, dude, he has terminal cancer. And you believe him completely. He doesn't have to do much besides be in pain and get haunted, but he does it well.
Elias Koteas is the reverend who bonds with Matt during an experimental cancer treatment that they are both undergoing. Koteas himself is a fine actor, and like Madsen, he underacts just enough to make everything he says and does meaningful but not forced. And he just has one of those faces. The kind that doesn't impress, but you also never quite forget. His role as a reverend seems only like the clothes he wears, just a part of him rather than being the whole of his life, which is the mistake that some movies make when they want to bring in religion.
"Haunting in Conn." is character-driven, which so few conventional horror pieces fail to do. Are there violins screaming for cheap scares? Those funky strobe lighting effects borrowed from Asian horror? Shadow people? Yes, there are all of these things. And to the conventional horror movie's credit, I actually screamed a little at one point and winced at another, and I wasn't the only one in the theater who did. If you're like me and you love all kinds of horror, and not like me in that you don't actually get caught up in those cheap scares, there are still people that you actually care about and a story to follow.
I've said it before, but I love a horror story that works on two levels: the first level is the conventional horror level, and the second is a commentary on real life. In the case of "Haunting in Conn.," the second level is the young boy battling terminal cancer. Now, I've only gotten smatterings of rumors about what happened during the actual haunting in Connecticut on which the movie is based. I understand that the boy actually had terminal cancer, and there was some speculation during that time that all the things he saw were simply vivid hallucinations brought on by his cancer or his treatment. The first half of the movie did not discount that possibility, and for that, I deeply respect the scriptwriters and director. The terrible realization of mortality, of that fine line between life and death
that's what made the first half of the movie draw me in. It's why the story worked - there was all that time devoted to the character, to contemplation.
The second half is where things began to unravel a bit as it delved exclusively into the supernatural without enough explanation or build-up on that side of the scale. But it was not nearly as bad as it could have been under someone else's direction or other actors. I know that I still had a lot of questions after the movie about the necromancer Aickman and his assistant, the medium Jonah. Was Jonah a willing medium, or was he forced into the business? How much did he willingly participate in Aickman's necromancing? Why was Aickman necromancing in the first place, since he seemed as frightened of the dead himself? Lots of questions from the nineteenth century side of the story and not nearly enough explanation - maybe fifteen minutes more of the movie might have helped.
The religion actually did not strike me as an unnecessary or intrusive part of the movie. The religious aspects of "Haunting in Conn." were very small and subtle - it was personal among the characters rather than being a force on its own. When Madsen concludes the movie with something like "They say God works in mysterious ways. They don't know just how mysterious," I don't feel like it is the final say on the matter. I did not feel that the themes were thrown in my face. It was very much how religion seems to act in real life, and I appreciated that.
So, in summary: "The Haunting in Connecticut" is certainly conventional as far as horror goes, but as a character-driven movie delivered by solid actors, it is still a pleasure to watch for those who love horror for the sake of horror.
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