Many critics have pounced on “The Haunting in Connecticutâ€Â for being formulaic, but I see nothing wrong with that.
In fact, I think it works tremendously in this film̢۪s favor; after all, formulas are relied upon because they usually deliver.
And let me tell you, “The Haunting in Connecticutâ€Â delivers.
The Campbell family is at loose ends. While teenager Matt (Kyle Gallner) battles terminal cancer and dad Peter (Martin Donovan) struggles to stay sober, mom Sara (Virginia Madsen) does her best to keep her family from slipping through the cracks.
With the help of her niece Wendy (Amanda Crew), Sara relocates the clan to Goatswood, Conn., where Matt is undergoing aggressive radiation treatments.
But it isn’t long before Matt starts to experience disturbing hallucinations involving corpses and severed eyelids; it turns out the house they’ve been renting used to be a funeral parlor where séances were conducted.
Enter fellow cancer patient Rev. Popescu (Elias Koteas), who reveals the truth about Matt̢۪s visions: dying people can see the dead because they themselves are so close to crossing over.
The scares in this “Hauntingâ€Â are frequent and relentless, as the reanimated charred remains of a young medium named Jonah appear to Matt time and again, warning of the numerous tormented souls inhabiting the Amityville-style house.
All hell literally breaks loose when Peter staggers home drunk one night, unleashing the fury of a hundred pissed-off spirits who want the truth to be known.
Director Peter Cornwell does a fine job of balancing the bodies and their possessed owners with minimal bloodshed but plenty of cringe-worthy moments, resulting in a near-perfect horror film whose fiery climax rivals the intensity of “The Exorcist.â€Â
To put it in a nutshell, “The Haunting in Connecticutâ€Â had me jumping out of my seat on more than one occasion, spilling a multitude of buttered popcorn kernels along the way.