Movie Crush Monday: The Haunting In Connecticut
If you're a regular around these parts, you know that I, CT, am a gigantic fan of horror film. Any type of horror film, even the bad 2-Star ones on Netflix. Found-footage. Zombies. Creature horror. But I have a special weakness for a good old-fashioned haunted house movie. Houses are inherently creepy if you ask me. They have history- people who lived there before you, feelings and events and emotions that hang around in a space. And there's that whole concept of basements and storage rooms and the various creatures that could inhabit them when you're not around. Nothing good ever happened to anyone in a basement or a crawl space, I'll tell you that. Anywhoo, that is why we're following the best ever character actor Elias Koteas to A Haunting In Connecticut.
On it's surface, The Haunting In Connecticut is one of those basic haunted house stories. Family moves into creepy old house. Teenage son starts seeing things in his basement bedroom. The rest of the family starts being terrorized as well. Turns out the house used to be a funeral parlor and the freakin' basement used to be where a clairvoyant boy was forced to summon forth demonic entities (of course they did, it was a basement for pete's sake). There are plenty of great jump scares, and the way the filmmakers work in the visions that the teenage son is having is pretty darn brilliant.
What makes The Haunting In Connecticut stand apart for me is the relationship between the mother (Virginia Madsen) and the son (Kyle Gallner, 908 South favorite). The film is loosely based on a true story, about a family forced to move into a new house while their teen son gets treatment for his cancer. I so deeply believed in the love between the two of them that I cared about whether or not the family survived this crazy situation.
For me, that's the most important part of a horror movie- whether or not I care about the characters. Virginia Madsen and Kyle Gallner do an incredible job of building characters you believe in, and a relationship that I cared about. Ya know, while a ghost terrorized them all.
Happy Watching!
CT
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| Source |
On it's surface, The Haunting In Connecticut is one of those basic haunted house stories. Family moves into creepy old house. Teenage son starts seeing things in his basement bedroom. The rest of the family starts being terrorized as well. Turns out the house used to be a funeral parlor and the freakin' basement used to be where a clairvoyant boy was forced to summon forth demonic entities (of course they did, it was a basement for pete's sake). There are plenty of great jump scares, and the way the filmmakers work in the visions that the teenage son is having is pretty darn brilliant.
 |
| Source |
What makes The Haunting In Connecticut stand apart for me is the relationship between the mother (Virginia Madsen) and the son (Kyle Gallner, 908 South favorite). The film is loosely based on a true story, about a family forced to move into a new house while their teen son gets treatment for his cancer. I so deeply believed in the love between the two of them that I cared about whether or not the family survived this crazy situation.
 |
| Source |
For me, that's the most important part of a horror movie- whether or not I care about the characters. Virginia Madsen and Kyle Gallner do an incredible job of building characters you believe in, and a relationship that I cared about. Ya know, while a ghost terrorized them all.
Happy Watching!
CT
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