According to the logline for ‘The Haunting In Connecticut’ some things just can’t be explain. Well in the course of this film its makers dam well try to explain everything, obliterating any chance the film has of being genuinely scary.
While the story is quite good and apparently based on fact, the way in which it is presented to us as a film works completely against the idea of reality and truth. Rapid cuts, flashes of ghostly figures, sharp stings of music to highlight moments that are intended to be frightening (these are the canned laughter of horror movies) are all very redundant, as the crux of the story is already quite terrifying. A boy with cancer, close to death himself, becomes a magnet for ill-at-ease specters in an old Connecticut home. This film falls folly to the same temptations faced by many modern horror tales, when filmmakers, producers and studios are afraid to take time to tell their story, build gradually to a climax and let the viewers mind imagine how terrifying the situation presented can be. What disappointed me most of all about this film was the over visualizing of the boy’s ghostly visions. They just seemed too detailed and specific, even logical. The filmmakers seemingly forgot that the epicenter of fear is the unknown and unexplainable. Here everything is given a reason and the characters seem to understand exactly who the ghosts are, where they came from and what they want. So the film’s ominous logline is actually a lie. To be fair, this film is a cut above most recent horror fare despite its short comings. What works about the film rides almost solely on the performance of Kyle Gallner as Matt, the boy at the center of all this ghostly attention. Gallner has gone on to appear in Jennifer’s Body and the Nightmare On Elm St. remake, and I’m sure landed those subsequent horror roles because of his turn in this film. If only the same could be said for the seasoned performers that surround him. Virginia Madsen as his mother, Martin Donovan as his father and Elias Koteas as a priest also stricken with cancer, all seem to struggle abit. Unlike Gallner, their performances didn’t seem very real. I know these actors can be good, so I’m putting it down to direction, sorry Peter Cornwell. It’s funny. Recently I’ve been watching a series on Discovery call ‘A Haunting’. Each episode concerns a real haunting and how people deal with the supernatural. Despite often local-theatre-company standard re-enactments this low budget series regularly provides the chills so many films can’t seem to muster.
No comments:
Post a Comment