There’s a certain feeling people get when a movie really surprises them. It eases their tension over losing 90 minutes of their precious time, it inspires higher expectations for the future, and it leaves them feeling somehow more fulfilled than they would have been had they gone in expecting greatness. It’s one of my personal favorite things about being a movie lover. Even better though, is when you decide to watch the film a second time to see if you were crazy or just plain wrong the first time through, and it only serves to reaffirm your stance. When I first watched The Haunting in Connecticut, I was tired, shitty-feeling and completely wound up, so you can imagine my relief when the credits began to roll and I stayed completely fixated through them, still on the edge of my seat. The Haunting in Connecticut has gotten a bad wrap as yet another tired showcase for jump-scares and cheap PG-13 thrills. That’s simply not the case.
As the backbone of the film was kept a secret from me by the advertising and review barrage, I’ll disclose as little of it as possible. The film isn’t grounded in story, but in character. While the obvious comparison can be made to one of my personal favorites Poltergeist, the Frelings were more or less typical people with everyday concerns, and not much out of the ordinary was going on with them before their home started trying to eat them. Conversely, the Campbells (based on real-life haunting victims the Snedekers) of The Haunting in Connecticut are going through a veritable mountain of real, life-threatening issues long before the earliest supernatural occurrence befalls them.
The film’s greatest strength comes from its conservation of time. Early on, while most films would be building up minor scares or tired jokes, writers Adam Simon and Tim Metcalfe, editor Tom Elkins and director Peter Cornwell are establishing a family on the brink of collapse. Without the slightest hiccup, our characters and our story are laid out for us in a manner that respects the audience, never giving them more information than they absolutely must know, all the while invoking real empathy from all but the most iron-hearted of viewers. In half the time it would take a lesser team of collaborators to get their first jump out of the audience, the Connecticut gang has already inspired you to care about the people you’ll be around for next hour and a half, as well as gotten a few legitimate frights. The story could easily fill 110 minutes, but everyone involved with Connecticut keeps it down to 95 without sacrificing an ounce of drama or story. The pacing is positively remarkable.
In all this talk of running times I’ve neglected to indicate how scary the film is. I don’t scare easy, and the reason I don’t scare easy is that while horror could be my favorite “genre” (as much as I hate to call it that), it so seldom develops people I truly care about before it starts hacking them up or getting them possessed. Or getting them possessed and then hacking them up. Like Sam Raimi’s inspired Drag Me to Hell, emphasis is placed on character as much as brutality, but whereas Hell went for yuks along with the fright, Connecticut bypasses the jugular and the funny bone and goes directly for your heart. It’s an almost positively humorless film from start to finish, but I for one was whispering “Don’t break this family apart,” by the film’s third act. I’ve cared for characters in recent horror movies before: Aggie in Tracy Letts and William Friedkin’s Bug and damn near every major protagonist in Frank Darabont’s The Mist; but so seldom have I been afraid for any of these characters’ lives as if they were more than words on paper. Make no mistake - The Haunting in Connecticut is a great horror movie, with plenty of truly disturbing imagery (grounded in understandable context), but its success as a work of cinema and the lasting effect it has had on me is due solely to the humanity imbued in it by its gifted writers, cast and the captain at its helm. If I have anything negative to say, it’s that later on in the film some of the dialogue from Elias Koteas’ Reverend Popescu was unfortunately made more expository than was originally intended. Even with that sad fact, that this is Peter Cornwell’s feature debut is nothing if not inspiring.
DVD Bonus Features
The main extra, besides your standard BTS, is comprised of interviews with the Snedekers, their friends and their neighbors. It’s a far above average account of a haunting because it never seems particularly unbelievable or one-sided. The Snedekers almost seem fearful in recollecting their experiences, but their neighbors never really seem to buy it. Good piece.
Beyond that there are a pair of haunting featurettes, a pair of commentaries (at least the first of which is more than worth your time), deleted scenes and the trailer. Oh, and a digital copy so you can experience the film on the go in all its sub-standard definition glory on a 3 inch screen. Kickass.
