The Haunting in Connecticut

The Haunting in Connecticut
Promotional film poster
Directed by	Peter Cornwell
Produced by	Paul Brooks Daniel Farrands Wendy Rhoads Andrew Trapani
Written by	Adam Simon Tim Metcalfe
Starring	Virginia Madsen Kyle Gallner Martin Donovan Amanda Crew Elias Koteas
Music by	Robert J. Kral
Cinematography	Adam Swica
Editing by	Tom Elkins
Studio	Gold Circle Films Integrated Films
Distributed by	Lionsgate
Release date(s)	March 27, 2009 (2009-03-27)
Running time	92 min.
Country	United States
Language	English
Box office	$77,527,732

The Haunting in Connecticut is a 2009 American psychological horror film produced by Gold Circle Films and directed by Peter Cornwell. It is alleged to have occurred to Karen Parker and her family, though Ray Garton, author of In a Dark Place: The Story of a True Haunting (1992), has publicly distanced himself from the accuracy of the events he depicted in the book. The film's story follows the fictional Campbells as they move into a house (a former mortuary) to mitigate the strains of travel on their cancer-stricken son, Matthew. The family soon becomes haunted by violent and traumatic events from supernatural forces occupying the house.

Although it was a moderately successful film at the box office (it grossed $77,527,732.), it received "generally unfavorable reviews" according to Metacritic. Gold Circle Films has announced the production of two more entries in the franchise, The Haunting in Georgia and The Haunting in New York. They noted, however, that neither film would be a direct sequel to Haunting in Connecticut and would instead be self-contained films with unique characters.

Plot

In 1987, Sarah Campbell (Virginia Madsen) is driving her son Matthew (Kyle Gallner) home from the hospital where he has been undergoing cancer treatments. The trips are frequent and long, and they have to stop often, as Matt gets sick. Sarah and her husband Peter (Martin Donovan), a recovering alcoholic, discuss finding a rental house closer to the hospital. On another hospital visit, Sarah finds a man putting up a "For Rent" sign in front of a large house. The man offers to sell her the house, noting that it has a bit of history, as it was formerly a funeral home. On the trip home, Matt is in extreme pain, so Sarah drives back to the house, where they stay for the night. Matt hears strange noises and sees his reflection become distorted, but writes the events off as a dream.

The following day, Peter arrives with Matt's brother Billy (Ty Wood) and cousins Wendy (Amanda Crew) and Mary (Sophi Knight), and they choose rooms. Matt chooses the basement, which also has a mysterious door, later discovered to lead to the old morgue room. After moving into the house, Matt suffers a series of visions involving an old, bearded man and corpses with symbols carved into their skin. He also sees strange creatures and appears to his family to be having blackouts.

At the hospital, Matt confesses that he's been seeing things to another patient, Reverend Nicholas Popescu (Elias Koteas). Nicholas tells Matt to call him if he needs to talk. After another vision, Matt calls Nicholas and tells him about the visions. Nicholas advises him to find out what the spirit wants. Later, Matt finds a burned figure in his room. He asks the spirit what it wants from him and the ghost begins to move towards him. When the rest of the family comes home, they find that all of the furniture has been stacked in the middle of the front room and Matt shirtless with his fingers bloody from scratching at the wall.

The family begins to crack under the stress of Matt's illness and bizarre behavior. Meanwhile, the children find a metal box of photographs, which show Jonah, a young man from Matt's visions, at a séance, emitting ectoplasm. Wendy suggests the house may be haunted and she and Matt research its history. They find out that the funeral home was run by a man named Aickman, the sinister bearded man from Matt's visions. Aickman also conducted psychic research and would host séances with Jonah as the medium. At one séance, all those attending, including Aickman, were found dead and Jonah disappeared. Later in the 1950s, the state was building a new road that would run through part of the cemetery near the house, and when the coffins were exhumed, it was discovered that many of the bodies had disappeared and were never buried.

Matt and Wendy then contact Nicholas to seek his help. Nicholas finds a smaller box containing eyelids that Aickman cut off of the corpses, and theorizes that Aickman was practicing necromancy in an attempt to control the dead and bind them to the house. He realizes that Aickman did this in an attempt to magnify Jonah's medium abilities. He asks Matt and Wendy to take his hands and pray with him for the souls of the missing bodies and for Jonah. When Matt takes their hands, he is drawn into a vision of that final séance. He watches as Jonah begins to painfully emit the ectoplasm from his mouth. He is broken from the vision when Sarah comes home.

That night, both Wendy and Sarah suffer visions of spirits. Peter arrives in a drunken state, and begins shouting at everyone for having the lights on, causing a frightening racket. Sarah confronts him shortly after, and warns him not to come home if he drinks again. When the family goes to sleep, all of the electronics in the house go haywire, terrifying them. In desperation, Sarah contacts Nicholas. Nicholas finds human remains in the house and removes them, after which the activity stops. Matt later awakens to find Aikman's symbols carved into his flesh. He is taken to the hospital, where he encounters Jonah. Meanwhile, Nicholas nearly crashes his car when Jonah appears in his backseat. He and Matt begin to have simultaneous visions after which Jonah's spirit disappears.

Peter and Sarah meet at the hospital and learn that Matt's cancer treatments have had no effect. They then discover that Matt has escaped the hospital. Back at the house, Wendy discovers all the food in the house has suddenly turned rotten. She takes a shower, while Nicholas leaves a message telling the family to get out of the house immediately – Jonah's spirit was actually protecting them from the spirits. Wendy is nearly suffocated by the shower curtain, but escapes, only to see Matt arrive with an axe. Matt breaks through the walls in the front room with the axe, revealing the dusty corpses Aickman hid in the walls. He forces Wendy and the children out of the house, barricading himself inside and tearing down the other walls, as marked corpses begin to tumble into the room. As he swings the axe, the view switches from Matt to Jonah, who seems to be occupying Matt's body. Matt lights the bodies and the room on fire, then crouches in pain in the middle of the room, as the bound spirits surround him.

Sarah, Peter and Nicholas arrive with the fire department, Sarah and Peter frantically trying to get in to save Matt. Sarah gets into the house and takes Matt under a table to avoid the falling timbers. The spirits finally disappear, seemingly freed, as a firefighter breaks through and pulls Matt and Sarah to safety. Outside, everyone watches tearfully as the emergency crew attempts to resuscitate a dying Matt. As Matt slips away, he has a vision of himself standing in the graveyard where he sees Jonah, no longer appearing burnt. He seems about to follow Jonah when he hears his mother's voice. He returns to his body and Jonah's spirit leaves him, appearing next to Nicholas before finally vanishing, as he can now move on.

At the end of the film, we are told that Matt's cancer has disappeared, and the house was rebuilt and resold with no further reported incidents of haunting.

Cast

• Virginia Madsen as Sara Campbell
• Kyle Gallner as Matthew Campbell
• Elias Koteas as Rev. Popescu
• Amanda Crew as Wendy Campbell
• Martin Donovan as Peter Campbell
• Sophi Knight as Mary
• Ty Wood as Billy Campbell
• Erik Berg as Jonah
• Joe McNight

True story claims

Promotional material for the film claimed that it is based on the "true story" of paranormal activities experienced by the family of Karen Parker in the 1980s. The Parkers moved into a house in Southington, Connecticut in order to live closer to UConn, where Karen's son was being treated for cancer. The family would later claim that it was plagued by some manner of demonic presence. Mortuary equipment was discovered in the basement, and it was later found that the house had been a funeral home. Karen Parker described the demons: "One of the demons was very thin, with high cheekbones, long black hair and pitch black eyes. Another had white hair and eyes, wore a pinstriped tuxedo, and his feet were constantly in motion."

The house was examined by Ed and Lorraine Warren. According to a write-up on the case in 2009 by NBC, the morticians that worked in the mortuary were allegedly involved in necromancy and/or necrophilia with the corpses, and the room where the two youngest children stayed was previously the show room for caskets; down the hall was where bodies were prepared for viewing. Lorraine Warren would later state that, "In the master bedroom, there was a trap door where the coffins were brought up, and during the night, you would hear that chain hoist, as if a coffin were being brought up. But when Ed went to check he found two women down there dancing around in circles and singing; when he walked towards them, they disappeared." In response to the film, Lorraine would later say the actual case was "much, much scarier than any movie could ever be," and that the film was "very, very loosely based" on their investigation of the house. Lorraine Warren has told the Associated Press that the house was cleared of any presence after an exorcism conducted in 1988. The story was also covered in an episode of the TV series A Haunting, called "A Haunting in Connecticut".

Production

Filming began on September 10, 2007 in Teulon, and Winnipeg, Manitoba and it was released on March 27, 2009 in the UK, USA, and Canada. The film was later released over the course of nine months to other countries, and was shown at the Imagine: Amsterdam Fantastic Film Festival the April following domestic release.

Home release

Horror film "The Haunting in Connecticut" has debuted straight to number one on the DVD and Blu-ray charts with 1.5 million units sold.

All Headline News, July 23, 2009

Rentrak reported that the DVD release of The Haunting in Connecticut was #1 in DVD sales for the week ending July 19, 2009. The extended version DVD includes a commentary with Director Peter Cornwell, co-writer Adam Simon, producer Andrew Trapani, and editor Tom Elkins, a second commentary with the director and actors Virginia Madsen and Kyle Gallner, deleted scenes with optional director commentary, featurettes ("Two Dead Boys: Making of The Haunting in Connecticut", "The Fear is Real: Re-Investigating the Haunting", "Memento Mori: The History of Post Mortem Photography", "Anatomy of a Haunting"), and a digital copy of the film on a second disc. The DVD material was produced and directed by Daniel Farrands, who also served as a producer on the film. The DVD release of The Haunting in Connecticut was the recipient of the Best Ghost Story award in Home Media Magazine's 2009 Reaper Awards ceremony held in Los Angeles in October 2009.

Release

Critical reception

Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes rated the film as "rotten", with a 19% positive rating based on 94 reviews. Metacritic found the film had received "Generally unfavourable reviews", scoring 33 out of 100 based on 23 critic reviews. certain aspects of the film were praised by many critics. Particular credit went to the acting: primarily the performances of Gallner and Madsen. Film critic Roger Ebert said the film "is a technically proficient horror movie and well acted," though he gave the movie only two stars.

Box office

In North America, the film opened in second place (behind Monsters vs Aliens), averaging $8,420 at 2,732 theatres. Its final North American gross was $55,389,516, and it made a further $22,138,216 internationally for a worldwide total of $77,527,732.

Sequels

Gold Circle Films are producing the follow-up The Haunting in Georgia with Tom Elkins as director and David Coggeshall as the screenplay writer. A third in the franchise was announced, The Haunting in New York, with Sean Hood writing the screenplay.

External links

• Official website
• The Haunting in Connecticut at the Internet Movie Database
• The Haunting in Connecticut at Rotten Tomatoes
• Snedeker Family Member Goes on Record with DamnedCT.com