Excellent but underrated film

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.

Close shines in drama with strong language, adult themes.

OK, but not great. Started well - the mystery and suspense was gradually increased and the plot promised much. However, the director then started to overdo the scares. The story got more confusing and nonsensical, and simply degenerated into scare-a-minute stuff.I never find Martin Donovan's acting convincing and this movie reinforced that view. Virginia Madsen's performance was good, however. Kyle Gallner did a reasonable job as the haunted kid.

Supposedly grounded in truth, The Haunting in Connecticut is a decent little spooker, yet still a pic that has all the pitfalls of other notable films of its ilk. Plot for what it's worth has a family move into a new home, only to find that it has ghosts and ghoulies residing within. But why?There's good strength in the family dynamic at work here, the eldest son has cancer and is undergoing treatment. Thus he becomes the conduit for the strange happenings, and this as his parents fight impending grief and personal worries. The scares toddle along effectively, atmosphere via camera work and sound effects is perfectly efficient, and the story has enough mystery about it to carry you through to the end.Unfortunately there's a lot of daft stuff as well, I mean who in their right mind would sleep in a basement room and not force open an adjoining door to see what is in there? It's these ridiculous leaps of faith required that if you are not willing? Then they kill the movie for you. The ending also takes some believing, such is the rampant stench of Hollywood of it all.Well performed in the main (Virginia Madsen solid as a rock/Elias Koteas shining in spite of being under used), this deserves to be rated above average. But ultimately it rings hollow at times and quickly runs out of scares in the last third. 6/10

This is one of my all time favorite movies. To me, this movie is different from other horror films because it actually has a tragic and touching story behind it. This film also scared me A LOT. I absolutely loved the actors. All of them did a phenomenal job in portraying their characters and helping the story move forward. I especially loved Erik J Berg's character because it was small yet dynamic. The soundtrack is suspenseful and beautiful. Every time I watch the movie, I notice something else that I hadn't noticed before. This movie never fails to entertain me, even though I have seen it at least five times. Overall, this is an outstanding horror film with plenty of scare and an interesting story.

This is a mediocre haunted house/demon possession film. It does have some good jump scares and the ghoul effects are well done. However, it suffers from the same haunted house cliché that many others in this type of genre have succumbed to: once the residents of the house figure out something is really wrong, instead of showing their backside to the house on their way out of town, they stay.This is no more evident than in this film. They are renting the house, in fact they got the first month free. There's no reason to stay. Strange stuff is going on, the entire family is freaked out, their son with cancer is obviously suffering from a mental breakdown, and their answer is to call some type of exorcist/paranormal investigator to see if he can get rid of the ghosts in a house that's not even theirs. Why even bother?Sorry but that killed the film for me. Obviously if they did leave, we wouldn't have a movie, but since this is "based on a true story", whoever the people the story is based on must be the biggest idiots in the world.