Haunting in Connecticut 2: Ghosts of Georgia": Not as Bad as the Title Would Suggest

May 1, 2013

First, the awful title. What kind of title is that? "Haunting in Connecticut 2", then followed by "Ghosts of Georgia". I don't think ghosts can bi-locate that far can they? Turns out it has nothing to do with Connecticut at all. They just wanted to ride on the true story theme of the first one, with the true story of this new film. Honestly, I did not think that was necessary. It just confused the audience, making people expect a totally B horror film.

That is unfortunate because the film was not bad at all. At first, this was a little run of the mill, a young family moves into a spooky looking house in the countryside. The mom Lisa, her sister Joyce, and the young daughter Heidi all can see ghosts. It turns out the house was part of the Underground Railroad during the 1800s, where someone called the Stationmaster (whose hobby was taxidermy) was supposed to have helped a good number of slaves escape. However, why are the spirits becoming increasingly violent?

The imagery of the ghosts was grotesquely good and scary. There was so skimping on disgusting crawling bugs. The taxidermy turned out to be more than just a trivial detail of the background story. One of the major scare scenes involves taxidermy needle and thread, and that was one crazy scene. OK, there were a lot of old horror flick clichés too, like sudden swells of music, people who did not want to leave despite the obvious dangers. 

The acting was not bad for badly-written characters. At least we saw what Chad Michael Murray is up to now after what seemed to be a promising start in his career. The ladies who played the sisters Lisa and Joyce played it up to par. The true star here is little Emily Alyn Lind, who played Heidi. She has the charm of "Firestarter"-age Drew Barrymore here. I hope she did not have nightmares or lifelong psych trauma while shooting this film. She looked genuinely shook up in some scenes. Very realistic acting for this talented little girl, I must say.

Overall, I felt this was a pretty good horror film, certainly not as bad as the clunky title would suggest. Creepy enough atmosphere, special effects, ghost make-up to give good scares. The historical back story also contributes to the depth of the film as a whole. I certainly do not consider this movie a waste of time as other critics would label it.