The Haunting in Connecticut
Directed by Peter Cornwell
- thriller
- horror
The story
When the Campbell family moves to upstate Connecticut, they soon learn that their charming Victorian home has a disturbing history: not only was the house a transformed funeral parlor where inconceivable acts occurred, but the owner's clairvoyant son Jonah served as a demonic messenger, providing a gateway for spiritual entities to crossover.
What it’s like
Dim, cold interiors dominate this 2009 horror film, with much of the action lit by lamplight, flashlight beams and the wan glow of a hospital-grade corridor, and its palette leans toward muddy greens, greys and tarnished browns. The camera is mostly handheld and close, pressing into faces and narrow hallways, and it lingers on old wallpaper, dripping pipes and the unsettling stillness of a house that seems to be holding its breath. Sound does much of the work: low drones, sudden stings and whispered voices that drop out completely, so that silence itself becomes the scare. The mood is bleak and uneasy, a slow-building dread that tips into brief, sharp shocks rather than sustained gore; the violence is intermittent and mostly implied, with some frightening imagery and grim suggestions of the house's past rather than graphic cruelty. Scenes are often recalled through flashback, which gives the rhythm a fractured, slightly disorienting quality. The emotional register sits in a mother's desperation and a teenager's fragile sense of self, as a family slowly loses its footing. Best for viewers who want a moody, atmospheric haunted-house chiller on a late night with the lights off, and who can handle jump scares and an unsettling, morbid undertone.
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