We saw The Haunting in Connecticut at the movie theater for date night (after refusing pizza from “Carlos Zambrano” at the mall pizza shop – seriously, the guy looks just like the famously hot-headed Chicago Cubs pitcher!) and the movie made for a pretty good ghost story. I had heard it was based upon a true story, but after seeing it, here is my guess on what about the movie is true: a teenage boy has cancer, his family rents a house (a former mortuary) near the hospital where he is receiving treatments, and they had strange happenings while staying there; probably due to stress or lack of sleep or even just plain exaggerations but not hauntings, is my guess. This is the basic plot of the movie, but I left out many events that could not have possibly happened in real life and would also be considered spoilers, so I will not go into details. I will say that the movie opens with all kinds of vintage photographs of deceased people – I know this because of my friend who attended a lecture on the subject. I had wanted to go with her, but we found out about it last minute and I relunctantly had to pass. But my friend went and came back with all kinds of interesting info which is how I knew what the pictures were that opened the movie. For instance, many people back then (the movie takes place in the 80’s, but the pictures were from the early 1900’s) didn’t have their photograph taken often, so when a loved one passed away, they would get their family portrait taken with the deceased – better late than never, I guess? Not only that, sometimes they would pose as if the person was still alive – kind of morbid by our standards today, but then again, things are very different and taking pictures is so much more common; it’s difficult to imagine past attitudes about this.
But The Haunting in Connecticut is a very entertaining, edge-of-your seat nailbiter with plenty of startles. To its credit, it’s scary and creepy without the gore. Worth checking out, if you like that sort of thing, but not one of my favorites – it did give me some ideas for a haunted house though… Now if I can just remember them until 2010 when we actually have the time to DO the haunted house…
Remember the Nicole Kidman movie called “The Others?” It had picture of dead people posed as if they were alive in pictures, also.
Sounds like an interesting movie. Definitely one to watch on video.
Dead people posing as if they were alive. CREEEEEEPY!