Issue date: 4/3/09 Section: The Verge

One would certainly hope that the true events that inspired "The Haunting in Connecticut" were more frightening than the actual film itself.

One would assume so, at least.

It must be more frightening to live in a house converted from a turn-of-the-century mortuary inhabited by the ghosts of more than 100 people whose corpses have been mutilated and experimented upon than to sit in a dark theater for two hours watching cliché moments intended to induce a jump more than actual fright punctuated by instances that could be misconstrued as "acting."

"The Haunting in Connecticut" is about as interesting as a horror movie as an actual trip to Connecticut.

Truth be told, the whole film feels like an "Amityville Horror, Jr. Edition."

It has all the delightful goodies of the "Amityville Horror" with none of the bothersome original ideas that may actually have a frightening effect on the viewers.

I mean, who wants to sit in a movie theater and be scared? Especially when watching a "horror" movie? It's a ridiculous notion.

But to be fair, one should weigh the two films side-by-side.

Do both films feature a parental figure that suddenly uproots their family to move into an old, mysterious rural large house? Yes.

But do both houses' being haunted stem from several people being tortured/maimed/mutilated/murdered? Indeed, they do.

They have a few things in common, but nothing too alarming.

In both films do the ghosts, or spirits, pick on just one member of the family to drive to borderline madness? Sigh. Check.

But there is no way that the eventual resolution to both films comes from an old holy man that inexplicably knows more about the house than a local historian would. Oh, they both share that, too.

It isn't just the unoriginal idea, although the film was based on true events, but more the poor dialogue and even poorer delivery by most of the cast.

In moments of fear, the young children in the film provide more convincing performances than their adult counterparts.

And Virginia Madsen, as the eternally stressed-to-the-brink mother, sounds far more melancholy and mopey than terrified in far too many scenes.

Although, Elias Koteas, perhaps known to most of this generation as Casey Jones from the original "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" film, delivers a stoic and seemingly genuine performance as Reverend Nicholas Popescu.

Even though he knows more than he should, the good Reverend seems to be the anchor that makes both the viewer and family in the film understand that a home infested by malicious ghosts is a serious issue.

The film causes more jumps than actual chills, more knee jerks than true fright, but is still more tolerable to a squeamish stomach than most horror movies abound today.

But if one truly looks for a great scary movie, "The Haunting in Connecticut" may come up a few frights short and half an hour too long.

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