Oct 16 2008
“Why do bad things happen to good people?”
The Haunting in Connecticut isn’t exactly something that would normally get me too excited. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy haunted house and supernatural possession movies, but these days, in the U.S. anyway, these types of flicks tend to be pretty one-note, and PG-13-safe to boot. Also, this one’s “based on a true story” (aren’t they all?), and that little tag has now come to mean for me that the quality of the film is suspect rather than gut-churningly realistic.
What does make me wanna plunk down my hard-earned cash is that the movie — which tells the story of a family that moves to the titular state so that its son can undergo cancer treatment, only to encounter chilling supernatural terror along the way — is co-written by Adam Simon. Who’s he? Well, Simon’s a long-time genre auteur who comes from the latter-day Roger Corman “school” and cut his teeth on some pretty terrific fanboy fare, like the trippy horror mindbender Brain Dead, starring Bill Pullman and Bill Paxton, and the shameless-but-fun 1993 Jurassic Park riff, Carnosaur. He also directed the excellent Samuel Fuller documentary, The Typewriter, the Rifle & the Movie Camera, and the ’60s and ’70s horror cinema doc, The American Nightmare. You might also remember him from the amazing, single-take, opening shot of Robert Altman’s Hollywood satire The Player, in which Simon accosts Tim Robbins on the studio backlot. I think he’s the real deal — a guy that loves the genre and just wants to make enjoyable movies — so I welcome the opportunity to add to the box-office numbers that might help keep his dream going.
The Haunting in Connecticut stars Virginia Madsen, Martin Donovan, and the always-entertaining Elias Koteas. The brand-new trailer is here. The film is slated for a 2009 release.
