Something's under the bed, honey...

Cast: Virginia Madsen, Kyle Gallner, Elias Koteas, Erik Berg
Director: Peter Cornwell
Screenwriters: Adam Simon, Tim Matcalfe
Rating: 15

As cynical cinema buffs everywhere are aware the horror tagline ‘based on a true story’ is designed to summon a pre-viewing twinge of terror. Fitting the fear-inducing formula, The Haunting in Connecticut charts the Campbell family’s ‘real-life’ encounter with some unexpected, and, most certainly, unwanted houseguests.

The spooky story starts when the family ups sticks and moves to Connecticut to be nearer the hospital treating teenage son Matt, played by a suitably surly Kyle Gallner, for cancer.

Obviously never having heard the phrase ‘if a deal is too good to be true, then it probably is’, the Campbell matriarch (Madsen) makes the decision to rent a dirt-cheap Victorian pad despite sensing that all is not well. She even sticks to her guns after finding out, via some pretty morbid photographs, that the house is a former funeral home.

No sooner is the family settled, than Matt, who in typical fright flick style chooses to sleep in the dingy basement next to, we later find out, a morgue used for some rather ghastly dead body meddling, begins to experience the home’s horrors.

At first the Campbell clan blame Matt’s bizarre behaviour on the experimental treatment he is undergoing. However, the brood, possibly spurred on by the discovery of a box full of eyelids – in a particularly stomach turning touch – eventually realise that something sinister is stalking lurking in the shadows.

After a spot of research in the local library, the family discover the previous owner conducted séances, using his assistant Jonah (Berg) as a medium. The Campbell family call in fellow cancer sufferer Reverend Popescu, played by Elias Koteas, who, being blessed with the same life and death insight as Matt, hypothesises that Dr Aickman was performing necromancy on the bodies to enhance Jonah’s abilities. He exorcises the property only to discover that Jonah is not the problem but rather the eyelid-less ghouls buried in the basement walls.

The focus on the thin line between life and death and what is revealed to Matt and his poorly priestly pal while they walk in the shadow of the valley of death, is the most interesting aspect of the movie. That’s not to say it’s bad, it’s just not that riveting, and, for a horror, is not even that frightening. If you are looking for a true-tale fright fix then you’d do better to revisit an old classic such as The Exorcist.

Special features: Two Dead Boys: The Making Of The Haunting In Connecticut featurette, The Fear Is Real: Reinvestigating The Haunting, a two-part documentary, Memento Mori: The History Of Postmortem Photography featurette, Anatomy Of A Haunting – A conversation with Barry Taff, Ph.D. and psychic Jack Rourke, deleted scenes

The Haunting in Connecticut is out on DVD and Blu-ray now

By Louise Meeson