On Screen

Since The Haunting in Connecticut (a totally creepy movie, by the
way) is based on true events, there are many lessons to be learned upon
viewing this film. Don’t want to be haunted by hundreds of evil and
eyelidless dead people with cryptic messages carved into their flesh
who are trying to kill you and your family? Then follow these easy
steps:

1. Don’t be a teenage cancer patient undergoing an experimental
treatment that may cause hallucinations.

2. Don’t be the stressed-out mother of a hallucinating teenage
cancer patient and don’t be married to an alcoholic who, when he
drinks, can be just as frightening as the ghosts who may be haunting
you.

3. If you are the mother of a teenage cancer patient (as well as
married to a creepy alcoholic), don’t move your family out to a eerie
old house in the middle of the woods that once operated as a funeral
home.

4. If you do decide to move to an eerie old house formerly used as a
place to drain the blood of dead people and store their bodies, and
ghosts do happen to start taunting you, your hallucinating and sick
son, and the rest of your family, FUCKING MOVE.

But what may sound like common sense to most people is apparently
more difficult for others to grasp. So when the Campbell family refuses
to follow steps 1 through 4—surprise!—very unsettling
things begin to happen.

And The Haunting does a pretty great job of making their nightmare
feel as scary as possible. Throughout the screening, there was nervous
giggling coming from the audience. Not because the dead kid with the
melted-off face up on the screen was funny, but because he was
absolutely terrifying and we all knew he was probably about to do
something that would make us nearly piss our pants. And he did. Every
time. Only at the “epic” end did it get slightly cheesy, and that’s
just because of the overwrought digital effects. Otherwise, The
Haunting is an entertaining and effective thriller (and not a bad
learning tool).