A Haunting in Connecticut

Rajvi Vora

A Haunting in Connecticut

With barely passing reviews, the movie A Haunting in Connecticut has received an overall rating of thirty-three percent on Metacritic. The highest rating, at only sixty-three percent, was given by Roger Moore of the Charlotte Observer. The story involves Matt (Kyle Gallner) who is a cancer patient and in an experimental program to see if his cancer can get cured. His mother (Virginia Madsen) rents a house for them to live in while dad (Martin Donovan) goes along with his wife’s decisions. Matt sleeps in the basement and starts to see dead people. His family thinks it’s the treatments that are making him see things, but it’s the house that’s the problem. There are many creepy moments which are made just to scare the audience. Moore says the movie “has plenty of creep-you-out” potential for kids but isn’t extremely scary for “hard-core gore fans.”
Michael Phillips of the Chicago Tribune has given the film a fifty percent rating. He says the scares are “low grade” and “scary face in the mirror” type of scares. They are all living in a former mortuary and Matt is the only one that sees the dead bodies that used to belong there. Soon, everyone living there starts to sense the horrors that went on in the house years ago. Elias Koteas tries to come in and save the day as a reverend who wants to help rid the house of all of the ghosts and spirits in it. The movie is low grade but the actors help it from sinking down further than it already has.
Mark Olsen from the Los Angeles Times gave the movie a forty percent rating. Olsen feels the actors are randomly put together. Virginia Madsen and Martin Donovan are seen as extremely unlikely as a married couple, and don’t mesh well together on screen. Olsen says that “the less Matt speaks, the better” showing that the main character did not hold the film well. Olsen finds it unbelievable and poor choice to see that Matt chooses the basement as his room. Unlikely and stupid, the film gets worse as the family continues to stay in the house when it is realized that something is wrong with it. The film is not very scary and does not hold itself well.
Rick Groen of the Globe and Mail (Toronto) gives the movie a 25 percent rating. Groen says the film is a usual scary film and that the family is full of “slow learners or don’t get out to the movies much” when referring to them staying in the house despite all of the eerie things that happen. The film tries to be metaphorical with Matt’s cancer along with the creepy house making his symptoms worse. The film could be deeper but does not focus on what can make it decent. There are scary rooms with sepia photos and scary instruments, very predictable. And finally, when a reverend is called to save the day, he suggests praying, boring the audience and once again, showing how predictable the film is.
Mark Savlov from the Austin Chronicle has given the movie its worse review yet, eleven percent. Savlov says that although Cornwell’s film is “based on a true story,” it is more based on other films that have preceded it. It is similar to The Amityville Horror, The Others, and Beyond. What’s worse is that the dialogue wasn’t anything worth noting. The film is way too predictable. Knowing when things are getting out of hand in their house, the family (of course) decided to call the reverend to perform an exorcism and make their lives better again. A mediocre film, A Haunting in Connecticut is likely and predictable.
Metacritic.com