The
Haunting
in
Connecticut
2: Ghosts of Georgia Film Review
Confession: I once harbored a bit (maybe more than a bit) of a crush for Chad Michael Murray. Many people may not know him, but he starred in a very popular teen television show. So it’s only right I admit what caught my eye about this movie was his starring role. It popped onto Netflix instant streaming and I thought, what the hell? Well now I can add this dumb movie and the 100 or so minutes I’ll never get back to the list of things I sacrificed in the past for my absurd crush (dignity, wall space, etc.) The Haunting in Connecticut 2: Ghosts of Georgia brings little to the table other than the question: why bother keeping the first part of the title when you’re moving it to Georgia? Was The Haunting in Georgia too much to handle?
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Allegedly based on a true story (don’t you just love that sentence at the beginning of horror films? Insert sarcasm here.), Ghosts of Georgia is about a small family who moves out to the country. All the women of the family, including the young daughter, seem to possess the ability to see ghosts. Lisa, the matriarch, opts for medication to keep this under control while her sister, Joyce, suggests just rolling with it. Shortly after moving to this house, Lisa’s daughter Heidi starts to see ghosts and a story about the previous occupants unfolds. My description of this movie is far more interesting than the actual film, trust me. I was bored from start to finish; the ghost backstory is mildly entertaining, but it’s not enough to float the movie. There is zero character development - it reminded me of House at the End of the Street in that the audience is expected to feel for characters they have no connection to. The movie is speckled with “gotcha” jumpy ghost moments, but they’re not scary. A couple of scenes involving sawdust and bugs are gross and entertaining, but they mostly just made me realize how lame all the other scenes are.
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This isn’t the kind of bad horror movie where you literally want to claw your eyes out. Itwasn’t so bad I questioned the genre and felt validated in saving horror. It’s the is-it-over-yet, this is freaking boring kind of bad. It’s just the kind of horror that leaves you feeling lame and depressed. A bit of a convoluted story, a string of jumpy moments and Chad Michael Murray do not a great horror make. I think a good ghost story is hard to come by in horror because it’s just hard to believe in and be scared by them, but this movie wasn’t even close.
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If you liked The Haunting in Connecticut 2: Ghosts of Georgia, you might also like Poltergeist, The Woman in Black and Mama.