The Haunting in Connecticut Movie Review 60

This movie is supposedly based on a true story of some family who moved into a house in the 1980's and saw spooky things, but who knows if it's true or not? This film is directed by Peter Cornwell and it stars Virginia Madsen and Elias Koteas.

So, the movie begins with a woman called Sara Campbell(Madsen) and she is talking about the house that she lived in with her family. We are taken back to 1987 and we see that her son, Matt(Kyle Gallner) is very sick. He has cancer. She and her husband fight because she wants to move closer to the hospital so that it will make things easier on her son. She decides to buy a house in Connecticut without telling her husband Peter(Martin Donovan). They move in and at first it is just Matt and Sara there. Matt hears noises from the basement and he goes down there. There is a room down there, but it is locked. Matt wants to make the basement his bedroom and his parents agree finally. Matt begins to see things and he is worrying his mother. He has dreams about a young boy who lived in the house years before.

He finally gets into the locked room and it is a room where dead bodies were embalmed. It turns out that the house was a funeral home. They discuss it and decide to stay anyway. Matt meets a sick Reverend when he is at his chemotherapy session and they talk. The Reverend tells him to call him if he ever needs help. Matt continues to see the young man who is called Jonah. He calls the Reverened(Elias Koteas) and they talk about evil etc. The other members of the family wonder if Matt is cracking up from his therapy at the hospital. He is participating in experimental treatment and they wonder if that is making him see things. The kids are playing in the hoise when one fo them puts her foot through the floor. They pull it out and find a box and photos of dead people. Jonah is in one of the pictures.

Matt and his cousin, Wendy(Amanda Crew) do some research into the house. Wendy finds out that jonah was an assisant to Aickmann who was doing research into the dead. He used to hold seances in the house and he used Jonah who had some powers. But after one seance, everyone died except Jonah. He went missing and nobody found him. The cops found 100 bodies gone from the cemetery. Wendy and Matt call in the Reverend. The Reverend sees the box and he opens it to find the shrivelled eyelids of loads of dead people. He tells them that Aickman was trying necromancy which is control of the dead. He wanted to keep their eyes open so that they couldn't pass on. Sara sees the Reverend and she throws him out.That night, Sara sees a ghost. All the lights in the house flicker.

The next day, Sara called the Reverend and asks for his help. He tells them that he will cleanse the house. He goes down to the basement and he finds the ghost trapped there. The house goes mental as he tries to expel the ghost. He finds the ghosts remains and he takes them outside and puts them in his car. Everything stops in the house. Matt wakes up covered in writing and he is taken to the hospital. The Reverend swerves his car as he sees something in the back seat. We find out that Jonah crawled into the incinerator to hide, but it turned on and he was burned alive. The Reverend sees all of this and he gets out of the car and lets the ashes blow away. At the house, everything in the fridge has gone mouldy. There is an evil presence in the house and it tries to kill Wendy. The Reverend calls the house and he tries to tell them to get out but nobody hears it. Matt goers back to the house to get rid of the evil. He unearths loads of dead bodies and he sets the house on fire. Everyone gets out only Matt and Sara runs back inside and grabs him. They are rescued by the firemen. The Reverend sees Jonah watching the house burn. Sara talks over the end of the movie and she says that Matt's cancer disappeared and that they moved out of the house etc.

This movie was okay. It wasn't brilliant by any means. I am giving it a 4/10.