MOVIE REVIEW: The Haunting in Connecticut

I rented The Haunting in Connecticut last night, after waiting for what seems like forever for it to come out on DVD. It wasn't as good as I had hoped.

Supposedly based on a true story, this movie is about a family who moves into a house that was formerly a funeral parlor and used to conduct seances. The eldest son in the family has cancer and they need to be near the hospital, which leads them to the house. When he starts seeing things, it's blamed on his treatments, but slowly they discover the dark history of the house.

Virginia Madsen (Candyman) stars as the mother and Kyle Gallner (Veronica Mars) stars as the son. The main reason I wanted to see this movie so bad was because I loved Kyle Gallner in Veronica Mars. He's becoming quite the scream king, having already starred in Red, and in the upcoming relases Jennifer's Body and the Nightmare on Elm Street remake.

This film seemed more like a drama than a horror film. There are a lot of scenes that just involve talk about him having cancer, i.e. having money troubles because of it, the other kids in the family resenting him for having to move, how horrible his treatments are. That comprised at least half of the film. Occasionally I like to watch a drama, but I don't like it in my horror films. I'm more of a horror/comedy fan. I think those two genres go well together. But not horror and drama.

And since this movie was mostly a drama, I was mostly bored. Well, that and the fact that the movie moves along at a snail's pace. And how there were only a handful of ghost scenes in what is supposed to be a movie about a haunted house.

But it does have a couple of creepy scenes. And I was grossed out by the whole eyelid thing...I don't really want to go into details....

It wasn't really a bad movie, it just wasn't a good movie either. If the pace had been faster and it had more scenes with ghosts it probably could've been a good movie. If you want to watch a better haunted house movie based on a true story, you're better off with The Amityville Horror. I would say even the remake of that was better than this.

Rating: 3/5