The Haunting in Connecticut

The Haunting in Connecticut. Dir. Peter Cornwell. Lionsgate, 2009. Film.




In The Haunting in Connecticut, Matt Campbell is suffering from cancer and has started an experimental treatment at a hospital hours away. The driving each day becomes a strain on him, as well as his family, so they buy a house in Connecticut that's much closer to the hospital. Suspicious of why they were able to get the house for such a good deal, the Campbells soon find out that their new house was once a funeral home. It was at that house that the dead were prepared for his or her burial and photographed for the last time with the deceased's family members. Soon after, the Campbells discover something even more terrifying. The funeral home's owner's assistant, Jonah, was used as a medium to communicate with the deceased. While the owner had his own obsession with a dark magic, he would dig up bodies from cemeteries, do horrid things to the corpses, and use Jonah's gift to try and obtain power from this magic. The spirits that were once in the bodies that the owner had taken, were now furious and eventually killed the owner, as well as Jonah. Jonah sets out to try and save Matt and his family by allowing Matt to see what Jonah went through years before. Matt even states, "I wake up in the middle of the night, and it feels like he's been inside me, looking out through my eyes." However, instead of escaping, Matt deals with the angry spirits lingering in the house. He discovers the corpses stacked in the walls, and after breaking the walls down, sets the house on fire. By burning the house, he allows the angry souls to finally be free. Soon after, Matt's cancer disappeared and the house is said to be perfectly normal to this day.

The Haunting in Connecticut, is said to be based on true events that happened to a family in Connecticut. After the deceased's bodies had been taken advantage of and not left in peace, their angry spirits lingered in the house with vengeance. Personally, I'm not sure if the entire storyline is true. Obviously, Hollywood spiced up the movie to make it scary and more entertaining. The real story it was based on was probably less dramatic, but I do believe that some of it has potential to be real. First of all, it makes sense for a funeral home to be haunted in some form or fashion. While I'm sure many are not, being that a funeral home is constantly filled with the deceased, presences of those people may not be uncommon. However, they most likely are spirits at peace. Being that such inhumane things were performed in the house, I believe that it is possible that this house could have been haunted. Also, Jonah was there for a reason. He was not just a lingering spirit, but a spirit trying to warn and save the Campbell family. Overall, I'm not completely convinced that this entire movie was based on a true story, but I do think it's possible that aspects of it may have been based on real events.