If I could, I would open this review with a sarcastic slow clap. Because I really think The Haunting in Connecticut was trying hard.
It ALMOST distracted me from the fact that The Amityville Horror has already been done and was good enough to not need another re-work. It ALMOST convinced me that it's based on a true story and not a bunch of lies by a few skittish morons who all completely wet their beds when their house made a creak or two. And it ALMOST convinced me that I should care about this poor family and their dying boy, with all its violin music and obvious plays on emotion.
But in the end, the only thing it did convince me of with any real assurance was that I bloody hated it.
The Story
There ain't much to this one, folks. Family with cancer-ridden son undergoing experimental treatment move into a house near the hospital, surprised by what a good rental deal they got on the massive mansion.
Turns out the house used to be a funeral home run by some insane mediums and, as a result, there are shitloads of evil spirits trapped in the walls.
Weird events follow and tomfoolery ensues. Twist twist twist: the end!
The problem is that the movie opens with the mother of the family (played with her usual condescending play-on-your-sympathy maternity by Virginia Madsen) talking to camera and EXPLAINING that we should feel sorry for them, because they are such nice people and didn't deserve to have this happen!
Yeah, because when you move into a clichéd scary house with ridiculously low rent, you never expect that it's gonna have issues, do you? Seriously, unless a zombie ate their brains in a previous genre flick, there's just no excuse for the stupidity this family displays.
And, to be honest, that play for sympathy doesn't even make sense. Because somehow cancer-boy is magically cured at the end of the movie and everyone is ok, so what exactly were they victims of? A few shit-stains on their underwear?
And that's really the problem, because that's all this movie is. There is no point, no investment, and it thinks it can sweep all that under the mat by pretending it's a true story!
The Acting
Virginia Madsen, whose shtick I enjoyed in Sideways, needs to learn a new carnival trick. She really grated on my nerves in this movie, playing up the sympathetic victim to the point that I wanted to see her eyelids torn off, her tits set on fire and the house's evil spirits repeatedly raping her for the rest of the film. Instead she just meanders through the movie, looking pathetic, and not really experiencing much danger because she can't see the ghosts anyway. I think the worst that happened to her was a few flashing lights, slamming doors and a bit of a fire at the end.
The actor that plays cancer-boy, Kyle Gallner, puts in a lazy effort that would be more appropriate for a guy who has already achieved Hollywood poster-boy status by starring in 17 Twilight movies. But this dude is a relative newcomer, with a few TV credits and a couple of small parts in films, so you'd think he'd put in a bit of an effort to be interesting. Admittedly, his character is so badly written that you don't know if you're supposed to be sorry he's dying of cancer, or scared of him because he's possessed by an evil spirit, but it doesn't matter what random state he tries to take on, you end up just wishing they'd spent a bit more money and cast Shia LaBeouf in the role.
The father, played by Martin Donovan, is pissy as hell, and as boring as all the others. Sure, he ends up with an alcoholism subplot that leads to a mildly interesting scene where he goes around the house smashing all the light bulbs because he can't afford to pay the electricity bill, but at the end of the day he's forgettable. And in a movie with only a handful of main characters, that's quite a feat.
The sister: boring. The little boy: almost non-existent. And, is it just me, or is the priest who comes to save them all (and ends up making things worse, ha-ha!) just doing a distractingly obvious Robert DeNiro impression the whole movie?
The Special Effects
There are some ok effects and creepy images as we trudge our way through the banal and pointless story. If flashes of ghosts with their eyelids cut off and writing cut into the skin of their entire bodies are your thing, then you'll probably forgive Haunting its other faults.
The prosthetic makeup design and effects are very nice and quite creepy in parts. But at the end of the day, the editing trumps that by adding too many flashy MTV effects.
Some of the spirit photography was pretty cool and creepy, but it was ruined a bit when one of the characters asks what's flowing out of the medium's mouth and the priest answers that it's Ectoplasm and nods seriously. I mean, I guess ectoplasm is probably a real word, but any term used in Ghostbusters is hard to take seriously, so it turned into a laugh out loud moment for me.
Anyway, I don't want to be too harsh. The movie was well shot and well produced. It's just amazing they can spend fifty million dollars on a movie's production but only fifty dollars flat on its script.
The Verdict
It must have been a crushing day in the Gold Circle Films office when they came up with the idea to re-make Amityville Horror, got halfway through pre-production and then one of the photocopy boys checked IMDB and realised there had already been an unsuccessful remake in 2005!
1 star, for a few creepy effects.
It ALMOST distracted me from the fact that The Amityville Horror has already been done and was good enough to not need another re-work. It ALMOST convinced me that it's based on a true story and not a bunch of lies by a few skittish morons who all completely wet their beds when their house made a creak or two. And it ALMOST convinced me that I should care about this poor family and their dying boy, with all its violin music and obvious plays on emotion.
But in the end, the only thing it did convince me of with any real assurance was that I bloody hated it.
The Story
There ain't much to this one, folks. Family with cancer-ridden son undergoing experimental treatment move into a house near the hospital, surprised by what a good rental deal they got on the massive mansion.
Turns out the house used to be a funeral home run by some insane mediums and, as a result, there are shitloads of evil spirits trapped in the walls.
Weird events follow and tomfoolery ensues. Twist twist twist: the end!
The problem is that the movie opens with the mother of the family (played with her usual condescending play-on-your-sympathy maternity by Virginia Madsen) talking to camera and EXPLAINING that we should feel sorry for them, because they are such nice people and didn't deserve to have this happen!
Yeah, because when you move into a clichéd scary house with ridiculously low rent, you never expect that it's gonna have issues, do you? Seriously, unless a zombie ate their brains in a previous genre flick, there's just no excuse for the stupidity this family displays.
And, to be honest, that play for sympathy doesn't even make sense. Because somehow cancer-boy is magically cured at the end of the movie and everyone is ok, so what exactly were they victims of? A few shit-stains on their underwear?
And that's really the problem, because that's all this movie is. There is no point, no investment, and it thinks it can sweep all that under the mat by pretending it's a true story!
The Acting
Virginia Madsen, whose shtick I enjoyed in Sideways, needs to learn a new carnival trick. She really grated on my nerves in this movie, playing up the sympathetic victim to the point that I wanted to see her eyelids torn off, her tits set on fire and the house's evil spirits repeatedly raping her for the rest of the film. Instead she just meanders through the movie, looking pathetic, and not really experiencing much danger because she can't see the ghosts anyway. I think the worst that happened to her was a few flashing lights, slamming doors and a bit of a fire at the end.
The actor that plays cancer-boy, Kyle Gallner, puts in a lazy effort that would be more appropriate for a guy who has already achieved Hollywood poster-boy status by starring in 17 Twilight movies. But this dude is a relative newcomer, with a few TV credits and a couple of small parts in films, so you'd think he'd put in a bit of an effort to be interesting. Admittedly, his character is so badly written that you don't know if you're supposed to be sorry he's dying of cancer, or scared of him because he's possessed by an evil spirit, but it doesn't matter what random state he tries to take on, you end up just wishing they'd spent a bit more money and cast Shia LaBeouf in the role.
The father, played by Martin Donovan, is pissy as hell, and as boring as all the others. Sure, he ends up with an alcoholism subplot that leads to a mildly interesting scene where he goes around the house smashing all the light bulbs because he can't afford to pay the electricity bill, but at the end of the day he's forgettable. And in a movie with only a handful of main characters, that's quite a feat.
The sister: boring. The little boy: almost non-existent. And, is it just me, or is the priest who comes to save them all (and ends up making things worse, ha-ha!) just doing a distractingly obvious Robert DeNiro impression the whole movie?
The Special Effects
There are some ok effects and creepy images as we trudge our way through the banal and pointless story. If flashes of ghosts with their eyelids cut off and writing cut into the skin of their entire bodies are your thing, then you'll probably forgive Haunting its other faults.
The prosthetic makeup design and effects are very nice and quite creepy in parts. But at the end of the day, the editing trumps that by adding too many flashy MTV effects.
Some of the spirit photography was pretty cool and creepy, but it was ruined a bit when one of the characters asks what's flowing out of the medium's mouth and the priest answers that it's Ectoplasm and nods seriously. I mean, I guess ectoplasm is probably a real word, but any term used in Ghostbusters is hard to take seriously, so it turned into a laugh out loud moment for me.
Anyway, I don't want to be too harsh. The movie was well shot and well produced. It's just amazing they can spend fifty million dollars on a movie's production but only fifty dollars flat on its script.
The Verdict
It must have been a crushing day in the Gold Circle Films office when they came up with the idea to re-make Amityville Horror, got halfway through pre-production and then one of the photocopy boys checked IMDB and realised there had already been an unsuccessful remake in 2005!
1 star, for a few creepy effects.
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