Review of The Haunting in Connecticut (2009) by Lewis C — 01 Jun 2010

There's nothing more annoying that a horror movie that relies entirely on jump scares to "scare" its viewers. The Haunting in Connecticut is defintely one of those movies.

Every few minutes, you can count on seeing a quick cut to something "frightening", along with a sharp, sudden noise that's sole purpose is to startle you. That's not a horror movie, that's a dull parade of unimaginative cliches. The family the movie is about is wholly unrelatable and uninteresting, and there really is nothing to know about them other than that the oldest son has some kind of cancer, and the father used to have a drinking problem. I guess that was supposed to add some kind of "heart" emotional anchor for the story. Fail.

Utterly absent is any attempt to create a frightening atmosphere or anything beyond the most paper-thin characters. If a horror movie has no imagination, a story that's been done hundreds of times before, and a complete lack of terror, what's the point of even watching it? This is one of the poorest efforts that the genre has churned out in a while. It's uninspired, derivative, and completely pointless. Don't bother with it.